rroLOGY 

R 

G 


NATURE  AND  LIFE. 


FACTS   AND   DOCTRINES   RELATING   TO 


THE   CONSTITUTION   OF  MATTER,   THE  NEW  DYNAMICS, 
AND   THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE. 


BY 

FERNAND  PAPILLOK 


TRANSLATED     FROM    THE    SECOND    FRENCH    EDITION,    BY 

A.  E.  MAODONOCTGH,  ESQ. 


NEW  YOKE: 
D.    APPLETON     AND     COMPANY, 

549    AND    551    BKOADWAY. 

1875. 


1  ' 


BIOLOGY 

LIBRARY 

G 


ENTEEED,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1875,  by 

IX  APPLETON  &  COMPANY, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


PREFACE  BY  THE  AUTHOR 


THIS  volume  contains  a  series  of  essays  written  and 
published  at  different  times,  some  of  a  general  charac- 
ter, and  others  more  special,  and  all  relating  to  the 
activity  of  natural  forces,  especially  those  of  life.  The 
mere  bringing  together  of  these  fragments  has  present- 
ed an  opportunity  of  completing  a  methodical  and  uni- 
form whole,  combining  exactness  in  details  with  gen- 
erality of  doctrines,  and  distinctly  tracing  the  precise 
aspect  of  each  group  of  phenomena  in  the  picture  of 
the  close  and  universal  relations  that  bind  the  whole 
together.  An  exposition  is  thus  offered  under  an  ele- 
mentary form,  in  language  freed  from  technical  dress, 
of  the  most  essential  truths  established  of  late  by  phys- 
ics, chemistry,  and  biology,  regarding  the  mechanism 
of  natural  forces,  and  the  arrangement  and  combina- 
tion of  the  fundamental  springs  of  being  in  the  world, 
especially  in  the  living  world.  I  indulge  the  hope  that 
such  a  work  might  meet  a  kindly  welcome  from  minds, 
ever  increasingly  numerous,  that  regard  science  as  the 
subject  neither  of  idle  curiosity  nor  of  passing  entertain- 
ment, but  as  the  object  of  earnest  sympathy  and  of  se- 


iv  PREFACE  BY   THE  AUTHOR. 

rious  examination.  Such,  at  least,  is  the  principal  pur- 
pose of  this  book. 

It  has  another,  also.  The  evident  disposition  of  the 
present  day  is  to  repose  infinite  hopes  on  the  natural 
sciences,  and  to  expect  unlimited  benefits  from  them. 
I  certainly  shall  not  view  this  inclination  as  an  illu- 
sion, and  this  volume  sufficiently  attests  the  high  value 
I  set  upon  all  that  can  encourage  and  foster  such  feel- 
ings. But  precisely  because  I  am  not  suspected  of  en- 
mity to  those  sciences,  it  has  seemed  to  me  the  more 
necessary  to  indicate  a  fatal  mistake  accompanying 
those  commendable  sentiments;  I  mean  the  mistake 
of  those  who,  after  loudly  praising  the  excellence  of 
science,  denounce  the  weakness  and  deny  the  author- 
ity of  metaphysics. 

Now,  my  reader  will  come  upon  more  than  one 
page  manifestly  inspired  by  the  conviction  that  science, 
properly  so  called,  does  not  satiate  the  mind  eager  to 
know  and  to  understand,  and  that  therefore  metaphys- 
ics holds  a  large  and  an  authorized  place  in  the  activity 
of  human  thought.  While  I  have  retouched  every  thing 
in  these  essays  which  seemed  to  me,  from  an  exclusively 
scientific  point  of  view,  susceptible  of  a  higher  degree 
of  exactness  and  precision,  I  have,  on  the  contrary, 
preserved  with  jealous  care  the  literal  tenor  of  all  the 
passages  expressly  written  under  the  influence  of  that 
conviction.  And  I  have  done  so,  not  because  of  any 
peculiar  value  in  those  reflections,  many  of  which  are 
nothing  more  than  a  very  imperfect  representation  of 


PKEFACE   BY   THE   AUTHOR  v 

my  way  of -seeing,  but  because  those  reflections  were 
then  made  for  the  first  time,  with  absolute  spontaneous- 
ness,  and  without  the  slightest  system  or  premeditation. 
The  reader  will  thus  be  able  to  see  how  general  ideas 
naturally  emerge  from  deep  and  close  contemplation  of 
a  group  of  various  details,  how  forcible  their  unsought 
impression  is ;  in  other  words,  how  surely  thought,  fol- 
lowing orderly  and  regular  evolution,  without  studied 
intention  as  without  dogmatic  aim,  arrives  at  the  loftiest 
philosophic  certainties. 

The  thinker  who  freely  seeks  for  truth,  continuously 
changes  his  position  in  his  aspirations  toward  mind  and 
the  ideal.  He  deserts  the  regions  of  phenomena  and 
concrete  things,  to  rise  to  those  of  the  absolute  and 
eternal.  The  farther  he  withdraws  from  the  former, 
which  had  at  first  absorbed  all  his  attention,  the  more 
strikingly  does  the  perspective  in  which  he  viewed 
them  alter.  At  last,  he  discerns  nothing  else  in  them 
but  spectres  without  substance,  and  delusive  phantoms. 
And  in  the  degree  and  extent  of  his  drawing  near  to 
the  eternal  and  the  absolute,  reality  comes  more  surely 
within  his  ken,  and  he  gains  a  more  vivid  feeling  and  a 
keener  conception  of  it.  He  measures  the  distance  he 
has  traversed,  and  values  the  worth  of  his  own  contem- 
plations by  the  fullness  of  lucid  clearness  which  enlight- 
ens his  faint  view  of  the  first  principles  of  things,  and 
by  the  depth  of  humble  reverence  with  which  he  bows 
before  the  mysterious  Power  which  created  all ! 

CONCARNEAU  (FlNISTERRE),  May,  1873. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  MATTER,  AND  THE  NEW  DYNAMISM..       1 
THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE,  AND  LEIBNITZ'S  IDEAS......     30 

THE  GENERAL  CONSTITUTION  OF  LIVING  BEINGS 62 

LIGHT  AND  LIFE 101 

HEAT  AND  LIFE 129 

ELECTRICITY  AND  LIFE 165 

ODORS  AND  LIFE 179 

MEDICAMENTS  AND  LIFE 204 

ANIMAL  GRAFTS  AND  EEGENERATIONS 229 

FERMENTS,  FERMENTATIONS,  AND  LIFE 255 

GREAT  EPIDEMICS — ASIATIC  CHOLERA 278 

THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  DEATH 303 

HEREDITY  IN  PHYSIOLOGY,  IN  MEDICINE,  AND  IN  PSYCHOLOGY.  330 


NATTJEE  AND   LIFE, 


THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  MATTER,  AND  THE 
NEW  DYNAMISM. 

WHATEVER  empirics  and  utilitarians  may  say  on  the 
subject,  there  are  certainties  apart  from  the  experimental 
method,  and  there  is  progress  disconnected  with  brilliant 
or  beneficent  applications.  The  mind  of  man  may  put  forth 
its  power  in  laboring  in  harmony  with  reason,  yet  discover 
genuine  truths  in  a  sphere  as  far  above  that  of  laboratories 
and  manufactures  as  their  sphere  is  above  the  region  of  the 
coarsest  arts.  In  a  word,  there  is  a  temple  of  light  that 
unfolds  its  portals  to  the  soul  neither  through  calculation 
nor  through  experiment,  which  the  soul  nevertheless  enters 
with  authority  and  confidence,  so  long  as  it  holds  the  con- 
sciousness of  its  sovereign  prerogatives.  When  will  pro- 
fessed scientists,  better  informed  of  the  close  connection  be- 
tween metaphysics  and  science,  whence  our  modern  knowl- 
edge of  Nature  has  sprung,  better  taught  in  the  necessary 
laws  that  govern  the  conflict  of  reason  with  the  vast  un- 
known, confess  that  there  are  realities  beyond  those  they 
attain  ?  When  will  science,  instead  of  the  arrogant  indif- 
ference it  assumes  in  presence  of  philosophy,  admit  the  fer- 
tility beyond  estimate  of  the  latter  ?  It  may  be  that  the 
hour  of  this  reconciliation,  so  much  to  be  longed  for,  is  less 
remote  than  many  suppose ;  at  least,  every  day  brings  us 


2  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

nearer  to  it.  The  spirit  of  Descartes  cannot  fail  to  arouse 
before  long  some  genius  mighty  enough  to  revive  among 
us  a  taste  and  respect  for  thought  in  all  the  departments 
of  scientific  activity.  Deserted  as  high  abstractions  are  for 
the  moment,  they  are  not,  thank  Heaven,  so  utterly  aban- 
doned as  to  deprive  study  of  its  ardor,  and  essays  of  their 
success,  when  these  relate  to  the  problem  of  the  constitu- 
tion of  matter.  In  fact,  this  is  a  question  which  for  several 
years  past  has  occupied  some  among  our  own  savants  and 
thinkers,  as  completely  as  it  has  employed  most  of  those 
of  the  rest  of  Europe,  a  question  which  bears  witness  with 
peculiar  eloquence  to  this  fact,  that,  if  philosophers  are 
forced  to  borrow  largely  from  science,  in  its  turn  science 
can  retain  clearness,  and  elevation,  and  strength,  only  by 
drawing  its  inspiration  from,  and  recognizing  its  insepa- 
rable connection  with,  the  abstract  consideration  of  hidden 
causes  and  of  first  principles. 


Matter  is  presented  under  a  great  variety  of  appear- 
ances. Let  us  consider  it  in  its  most  complicated  state,  in 
the  human  body,  for  instance.  In  this,  ordinary  dissection 
distinguishes  organs,  which  may  be  resolved  into  tissues. 
The  disintegration  of  the  latter  yields  anatomical  elements 
from  which  direct  analysis  extracts  a  certain  number  of 
chemical  principles.  Here  the  anatomist's  work  ends.  The 
chemist  steps  in,  and  recognizes  in  these  principles  definite 
kinds  arising  from  the  combination,  in  fixed  and  determi- 
nate proportions,  of  a  certain  number  of  principles  that  can- 
not be  decomposed,  substantially  indestructible,  to  which 
he  gives  the  name  of  simple  bodies.  Carbon,  nitrogen, 
oxygen,  hydrogen,  sulphur,  phosphorus,  calcium,  iron,  which 
thus  set  a  limit  to  experimental  analysis  of  the  most  com- 
plex bodies,  are  simple  substances,  that  is  to  say,  they  are 
the  original  and  irresolvable  radicals  of  the  tissue  of  things. 


THE   CONSTITUTION  OF  MATTER.  3 

We  DOW  know  that  matter  is  not  indefinitely  divisible, 
and  that  the  smallest  parts  of  the  various  simple  substances 
existing  in  those  that  are  naturally  compound  have  not  all 
the  same  dimensions,  nor  equal  weights.  Chemistry,  by  a 
course  of  analyses  and  measurements,  has  succeeded  in  de- 
termining the  weights  of  atoms  of  the  different  elements, 
that  is  to  say,  taking  as  a  unit  an  atom  of  the  lightest  ele- 
ment, hydrogen,  in  determining  the  weight  of  the  atoms 
which  are  equivalent  to  this  conventional  unit  in  the  various 
combinations.  Though  many  savants  continue  to  maintain 
that  atomic  weights  are  nothing  but  relations,  and  that 
the  existence  of  atoms  is  a  mere  logical  device,  it  seems 
more  reasonable  to  admit,  with  the  majority  of  those  who 
have  studied  this  difficult  problem  closely,  that  these  atoms 
are  actual  realities,  while  it  may  be  very  far  from  easy  to 
settle  precisely  their  absolute  dimensions.  In  any  case,  we 
may  affirm  that  these  dimensions  are  very  much  less  than 
those  presented  by  the  particles  of  matter  subjected  to  the 
most  powerful  and  subtile  methods  of  division,  or  decom- 
posed by  the  imagination  into  its  minutest  elements.  "  Let 
man,"  says  Pascal,  "  investigate  the  smallest  things  of  all 
he  knows ;  let  this  dot  of  an  insect,  for  instance,  exhibit  to 
him  in  its  diminutive  body  parts  incomparably  more  dimin- 
utive, jointed  limbs,  veins  in  those  limbs,  blood  in  those 
veins,  in  that  blood  humors,  and  drops  within  those  humors 
— let  him,  still  subdividing  these  finest  points,  exhaust  his 
power  of  conception,  and  let  the  minutest  object  his  fancy 
can  shape  be  that  one  of  which  we  are  now  speaking — he 
may,  perhaps,  suppose  that  to  be  the  extreme  of  minute- 
ness in  Nature.  I  will  make  him  discover  yet  a  new  abyss 
within  it.  I  will  draw  for  him  not  merely  the  visible  uni- 
verse but  all  besides  that  his  imagination  can  grasp,  the 
immensity  of  Nature,  within  the  confines  of  that  impercep- 
tible atom."  In  this  Pascal  displays  a  feeling  as  true  as  it 
is  deep  of  the  infinitely  small,  and  it  is  interesting  to  ob- 


4  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

serve  how  the  amazing  revelations  of  the  microscopic  world 
have  justified  his  eloquence  and  foresight ;  and  yet  this  mi- 
croscopic world,  whose  minutest  representatives,  such  as 
vibrios  and  bacteria,  are  hardly  less  than  the  ten-thousandth 
part  of  ^5-  of  an  inch,  how  coarse  it  is  compared  with  the 
particles  thrown  off  by  odorous  bodies,  and  with  the  incon- 
ceivably minute  quantities  which  chemistry,  physics,  and 
mechanics,  now  measure  without  seeing  them,  or  make 
their  existence  plain  without  grasping  them.  We  may 
mention  some  instances  which  can  give  us  an  idea  of  these. 
According  to  Tyndall,  when  very  minute  solid  particles, 
smaller  than  the  luminous  waves,  are  diffused  in  a  medi- 
um traversed  by  light,  the  light  is  decomposed  in  such  a 
way  that  the  least  waves,  the  blue  ones,  predominate  in 
the  reflected  rays,  and  the  largest  ones,  the  red  waves,  in 
the  transmitted  rays.  This  ingenious  physicist  thus  ex- 
plains how  the  blue  color  of  the  sky  depends  and  must  de- 
pend on  the  existence  of  solid  particles,  excessively  minute, 
diffused  in  infinite  quantity  through  the  atmosphere.  Tyn- 
dall  is  not  disinclined  to  the  idea  that  these  imperceptible 
atoms  might  very  well  be  no  other  than  those  germs  of 
microscopic  organisms  the  presence  of  which  in  the  atmos- 
phere has  been  proved  by  the  labors  of  Pasteur,  as  well  as 
the  part  they  take  in  the  phenomena  of  putrefaction  and  fer- 
mentation. The  ova  of  these  beings,  which  are  barely  vis- 
ible under  the  microscope  after  attaining  full  development, 
and  of  which  the  number,  ascertained  by  the  most  decisive 
evidence,  confounds  the  boldest  imagination,  these  would  be 
the  elements  of  that  vital  ether,  as  we  have  termed  it,  that 
dust  which  gives  its  lovely  blue  tint  to  the  vault  of  the  sky. 
"  There  exist  in  the  atmosphere,"  Tyndall  says  in  closing, 
"  particles  of  matter  that  elude  the  microscope  and  the  scales, 
which  do  not  disturb  its  clearness,  and  yet  are  present  in 
it  in  so  immense  a  multitude  that  the  Hebrew  hyperbole 
of  the  number  of  grains  of  sand  on  the  sea-shore  becomes 


THE   CONSTITUTION  OF  MATTER.  5 

comparatively  unmeaning."     And,  to  give  an  idea  of  the 
minuteness  of  these  particles,  Tyndall  adds  that  they  might 
be  condensed  till  they  would  all  go  into  a  lady's  traveling- 
bag.     Manifestly  these  particles  escape  any  kind  of  direct 
measurement  arid  observation.     Their  objective  reality  can 
no  more  be  demonstrated  than  that  of  the  particles  of  ether 
can  be  made  evident.     Yet  there  are  certain  facts  which 
aid  us  to  form  a  clear  conception  of  them.     Let  us  dissolve 
a  gramme  of  resin  in  a  hundred  times  its  weight  of  alcohol, 
then  pour  the  clear  solution  into  a  large  flask  full  of  pure 
water,  and  shake  it  briskly.     The  resin  is  precipitated  in 
the  form  of  an  impalpable  and  invisible  powder,  which  does 
not  perceptibly  cloud  the  fluid.     If,  now,  we  place  a  black 
surface  behind  the  flask,  and  let  the  light  strike  it  either 
from  above  or  in  front,  the  liquid  appears  sky-blue.     Yet,  if 
this  mixture  of  water  and  alcohol  filled  with  resinous  dust 
is  examined  with  the  strongest  microscope,  nothing  is  seen. 
The  size  of  the  grains  of  this  dust  is  much  less  than  the  ten- 
thousandth  part  of  ^g-  of  an  inch.     Morren  makes  another 
experiment,  proving  in  a  still  more  surprising  way  the  ex- 
treme divisibility  of  matter :  Sulphur  and  oxygen  form  a 
close  combination,  called  by  chemists  sulphuric-acid  gas. 
It  is  that  colorless  and  suffocating  vapor  thrown  off  when  a 
sulphur-match  is  burned.     Morren  confines  a  certain  quan- 
tity of  this  gas  in  a  receiver,  places  the  whole  in  a  dark 
medium,  and  sends  a  bright  ray  of  light  through  it.     At 
first  nothing  is  visible.     But  very  soon  in  the  path  of  the 
luminous  ray  we  perceive  a  delicate  blue  color.     It  is  be- 
cause the  gas  is  decomposed  by  the  luminous  waves,  and 
the  invisible  particles  of  sulphur  set  free  decompose  the 
light  in  turn.     The  blue  of  the  vapor  deepens,  then  it  turns 
whitish,  and  at  last  a  white  cloud  is  produced.     The  par- 
ticles composing  this  cloud  are  still  each  by  itself  invisible, 
even  under  strong  microscopes,  and  yet  they  are  infinitely 
more  coarse  than  the  primitive  atoms  that  occasioned  the 


6  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

sky-blue  tint  at  first  seen  in  the  receiver.  In  this  experiment 
we  pass  in  steady  progress  from  the  free  atom  of  sulphur 
parted  from  the  oxygen-atom  by  the  ether-waves  to  a  mass 
apparent  to  the  senses  ;  but,  if  this  mass  is  made  up  of  iree 
molecules  which  defy  the  strongest  magnifiers,  what  must 
be  the  particles  which  have  produced  those  very  molecules  ! 

A  last  instance  of  another  kind  will  complete  the  proof 
as  to  the  minuteness  of  the  elements  of  matter.  "When  a 
clear  solution  of  sulphate  of  aluminum  is  poured  into  an 
equally  clear  solution  of  sulphate  of  potassa,  the  mixture 
at  once  grows  turbid,  and  after  a  few  seconds  myriads  of 
little  crystals,  sparkling  like  diamonds,  make  their  appear- 
ance in  the  liquid,  which  are  nothing  else  than  crystals  of 
alum.  If  we  suppose  the  diameter  of  these  crystals  to  be 
•^  of  an  inch,  it  will  follow  from  this  experiment  that  in 
the  lapse  of  a  few  seconds  crystals  had  the  power  of  pro- 
ducing themselves  containing  tens  of  millions  of  molecules, 
each  composed  of  ninety-four  atoms,  grouped  in  admirable 
harmony.  The  motions  of  these  chemical  atoms  take  place 
under  the  influence  of  the  same  forces  that  guide  the 
motions  of  those  enormous  agglomerations  of  atoms  called 
stars.  The  revolution  of  one  sun  around  another  takes  a 
thousand  years,  while  these  atoms  in  course  of  combination 
perform  hundreds  of  millions  of  such  revolutions  in  the 
millionth  part  of  a  second  ! 

By  varied  and  delicate  calculations,  Thomson  has  suc- 
ceeded in  establishing  the  fact  that,  in  liquids  and  trans- 
parent or  translucent  solids,  the  mean  distance  between  the 
centres  of  two  contiguous  atoms  is  comprised  between  the 
ten-millionth  and  the  two-hundred-millionth  part  of  -^  of  an 
inch.  It  is  not  easy  to  form  an  exact  conception  of  dimen- 
sions so  small,  of  which  nothing,  among  the  objects  that 
affect  our  senses,  can  convey  any  idea.  Thomson  judges 
that  the  following  comparison  may  aid  us  to  appreciate 
them :  If  we  imagine  a  sphere  as  large  as  a  pea  magnified, 


THE   CONSTITUTION   OF   MATTER.  7 

so  as  almost  to  equal  the  earth's  volume,  and  the  atoms  of 
that  sphere  enlarged  in  the  same  proportion,  they  will  then 
have  a  diameter  greater  than  that  of  a  shot,  and  less  than 
that  of  an  orange.  In  other  words,  an  atom  is  to  a  globe 
the  size  of  a  pea  what  an  apple  is  to  the  terrestrial  globe. 
By  arguments  of  quite  another  kind,  drawn  in  part  from  the 
study  of  chemical  molecules,  in  part  from  the  phenomena 
of  capillarity,  Gaudin  has  ascertained,  for  the  dimension  of 
the  smallest  particles  of  matter,,  figures  very  nearly  the 
same  as  Thomson's.  The  maximum  distance  apart  of  the 
chemical  atoms  in  molecules  is  the  ten-millionth  part  of  -^ 
of  an  inch.  Gaudin  follows  Thomson  in  the  attempt  to  give 
some  sensible  notion  of  the  truly  amazing  minuteness  of  a 
dimension  like  this.  He  calculates,  upon  this  estimate,  the 
number  of  chemical  atoms  contained  in  about  the  size  of  a 
pin's-head,  and  he  finds  that  the  number  requires  for  its  ex- 
pression the  figure  eight  followed  by  twenty-one  ciphers. 
So  that,  if  we  attempted  to  count  the  number  of  metallic 
atoms  contained  in  a  large  pin's-head,  separating  each  sec- 
ond ten  millions  of  them,  we  should  need  to  continue  the 
operation  for  more  than  250,000  years  ! 

There  are,  then,  atoms  in  matter,  and  atomism  is  a  fact, 
whenever  we  rest  in  the  affirmation  of  the  existence  of 
atoms.  But  these  are  not  the  real  principles,  the  simple 
and  irreducible  elements  of  the  world.  After  decompos- 
ing sensible  matter  into  atoms,  we  must  subject  the  latter 
to  an  analysis  of  the  same  kind.  Let  us,  then,  consider 
any  two  heterogeneous  atoms  whatever,  an  atom  of  iron 
and  an  atom  of  hydrogen,  for  instance,  and  examine  in 
what  respect  they  can  really,  essentially,  differ  from  each 
other.  What  is  it  which  at  bottom  truly  distinguishes 
these  two  atoms,  as  atoms  ?  It  is  not  any  peculiarity  of 
form,  solidity,  fluidity,  hardness,  sonorousness,  brightness, 
because  these  properties  evidently  depend  on  the  mutual 
arrangement  and  disposition  of  atoms,  that  is,  because 


8  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

they  are  not  relative  to  the  individuality  of  each  atom, 
but  to  that  of  the  whole  which  they  form  by  being  grouped 
together.  Neither  is  it  any  caloric  property,  or  optic,  or 
electric,  or  magnetic  one,  because  these  properties  result 
from  the  movements  of  the  ether,  within  the  more  or  less 
complex  aggregate  of  the  respective  atoms  of  these  two 
substances.  Now,  if  these  atoms,  taken  separately,  differ 
from  each  other  in  virtue  of  none  of  the  properties  just 
enumerated,  they  can  only  be  dissimilar  as  regards  two 
attributes,  dimension  and  weight ;  but  difference  in  weight 
results  from  difference  in  dimension,  and  is  not  a  quali- 
tative difference,  but  simply  a  quantitative  one.1  Con- 
sequently, any  two  heterogeneous  atoms  whatever,  com- 
pared together,  as  atoms,  have  scarcely  any  of  the  differ- 
ential attributes  peculiar  to  the  groups  which  they  make 
up  by  aggregation,  and  represent  no  more  than  two  dis- 
tinct functions,  two  different  values  of  one  and  the  same 
initial  matter,  of  one  and  the  same  primitive  quality  or 
energy.  This  simple  demonstration  establishes  the  unity 
of  substance,  not  as  a  more  or  less  plausible  physical 
hypothesis,  but  as  a  metaphysical  certainty,  alike  underiv- 
able  and  necessary.  If  we  add  now,  reserving  the  demon- 
stration for  a  later  period,  that  dimension,  corporeal  ex- 
tension itself,  as  Leibnitz  said  and  as  Magy  has  lately 
proved,  is  only  a  resultant  of  force,  it  will  become  evident 
that  matter,  in  the  last  analysis,  is  reduced  to  force. 

Tyndall,  in  his  biography  of  Faraday,  tells  us  that  one 
of  the  favorite  experiments  of  this  physicist  gives  a  true 
image  of  what  he  was  :  "  He  loved  to  show  how  water,  in 
crystallizing,  eliminates  all  foreign  substances,  however 
intimately  mingled  they  may  be  with  it.  Separated  from 
all  these  impurities,  the  crystal  becomes  clear  and  limpid." 

1  We  purposely  take  no  notice  of  chemical  forces,  which  can  only  be 
regarded  as  attractions,  and  must  therefore  be  explained  by  forces  acting 
outside  of  the  atom  itself. 


THE    CONSTITUTION  OF  MATTER.  9 

This  experiment  is  especially  the  true  image  of  what 
Faraday  was  as  a  metaphysician.  For  him  nothing  had 
so  great  a  charm  as  those  serene  transparent  regions,  in 
which  science,  cleared  of  impurities,  appeared  to  his  great 
mind  in  all  the  glory  of  its  power  and  splendor.  He 
yielded  himself  to  it  with  absolute  abandonment.  He 
particularly  loved  to  dwell  upon  the  problem  which  is 
now  engaging  us :  "  What  do  we  know  of  an  atom  apart 
from  force  ? "  he  exclaims.  "  You  conceive  a  nucleus 
which  may  be  called  a,  and  you  surround  it  with  forces 
which  may  be  called  m  /  to  my  mind  your  a  or  nucleus 
vanishes,  and  substance  consists  in  the  energy  of  m.  In 
fact,  what  notion  can  we  form  of  a  nucleus  independent 
of  its  energy  ? "  As  he  holds,  matter  fills  all  space,  and 
gravitation  is  nothing  else  than  one  of  the  essentially  con- 
stitutive forces  of  matter,  perhaps  even  the  only  one.  An 
eminent  chemist,  Henry  Saint-Claire  Deville,  lately  de- 
clared that,  when  bodies  deemed  to  be  simple  combine 
with  one  another,  they  vanish,  they  are  individually  anni- 
hilated. For  instance,  he  maintains  that  in  sulphate  of 
copper  there  is  neither  sulphur,  nor  oxygen,  nor  copper. 
Sulphur,  oxygen,  and  copper,  are  composed,  each  of  them, 
by  a  distinct  system  of  definite  vibrations  of  one  energy, 
one  single  substance.  The  compound,  sulphate  of  copper, 
answers  to  a  different  system,  in  which  the  motions  are 
confounded  that  would  produce  the  respective  individuali- 
ties of  its  elements,  sulphur,  oxygen,  and  copper.  More- 
over, Berthelot  long  ago  expressed  himself  in  exactly  the 
same  manner.  As  long  ago  as  1864  that  savant  said  that 
the  atoms  of  simple  bodies  might  be  composed  of  one  and 
the  same  matter,  distinguished  only  by  the  nature  of  the 
motions  set  up  in  it.  This  decisive  saying  a  great  num- 
ber of  savants  and  philosophers  in  France  and  abroad  have 
repeated  and  are  still  repeating,  with  good  reason,  as  the 
expression  of  a  solid  truth. 


10  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

If  the  smallest  parts  which  we  can  imagine  and  distin- 
guish in  bodies  differ  from  each  other  only  by  the  nature  of 
the  motions  to  which  they  are  subjected,  if  motion  alone 
rules  and  determines  the  variety  of  different  attributes 
which  characterize  these  atoms,  if,  in  a  word,  the  unity  of 
matter  exists — and  it  must  exist — what  is  this  fundamental 
and  primary  matter  whence  all  the  rest  proceed?  How 
shall  we  represent  it  to  our  minds  ?  Every  thing  leads  to 
the  belief  that  it  is  not  essentially  distinguished  from  the 
ether,  and  consists  in  atoms  of  ether  more  or  less  strongly 
held  together.  It  is  objected  that  the  ether  is  imponder- 
able ;  but  that  is  an  unfounded  objection.  Doubtless  it 
cannot  be  weighed ;  to  do  that  we  must  compare  a  space 
filled  with  ether  to  a  space  empty  of  ether ;  and  we  are 
evidently  unable  to  isolate  this  subtile  agent,  whose  par- 
ticles counterpoise  each  other  with  perfect  equilibrium 
throughout  the  universe.  Yet  many  facts  attest  its  pro- 
digious elasticity.  A  flash  of  lightning  is  nothing  more 
than  a  disturbance  of  equilibrium  in  the  ether,  yet  no  one 
will  deny  that  lightning  performs  an  immense  work.  How- 
ever this  may  be,  it  is  impossible  to  think  of  the  energies 
that  make  up  the  atom  otherwise  than  as  of  pure  force, 
and  the  ether  itself,  whose  existence  is  demonstrated  by 
the  whole  of  physics,  can  be  no  otherwise  defined  than  by 
the  attributes  of  force.1  It  follows  from  this  that  atoms, 
the  last  conclusion  of  chemistry,  and  ether,  the  last  con- 
clusion of  physics,  are  substantially  alike,  although  they 
form  two  distinct  degrees,  two  unequal  values,  of  the 
same  original  activity.  All  those  physico-chemical  ener- 
gies, as  well  as  the  analogous  energies  of  life,  only  show 
themselves  to  us,  save  in  rare  exceptions,  clothed  with  that 

1  "  Setting  aside  any  theory,  it  would  be  hard  to  find  in  all  these  terms, 
dilatation,  propagation,  radiation,  vibration,  reflection,  refraction,  attrac- 
tion, repulsion,  polarization,  etc.,  any  thing  else  than  phenomena  of  mo- 
tion."— CHARLES  DE  REMUSAT,  "  Philosophical  Essays,"  vol.  ii.,  On  Matter. 


THE   CONSTITUTION  OF  MATTER.  H 

uniform  we  call  matter.  A  single  one  of  these  energies 
shows  forth,  stripped  of  this  dress,  and  bare.  It  rules  all 
the  others,  because  it  knows  them  all  without  their  know- 
ing it.  It  is  not  power  merely,  but  consciousness  besides. 
It  is  the  soul.  How  define  it  otherwise  than  as  force  in  its 
purest  essence,  since  we  look  upon  it,  as  on  the  marble  of 
the  antique,  in  splendid  nakedness,  which  is  radiant  beauty 
too? 

Whether  we  consider  coarser  matter  which  can  be 
weighed  and  felt,  or  that  more  subtile,  lively,  and  active 
matter  we  call  ether,  or  again  the  spiritual  principle,  which 
is  energy  simple,  we  have  then  always  before  us  only  har- 
monious collections  of  forces,  symmetrical  activities,  or- 
dered powers,  more  or  less  conscious  of  the  part  they  play 
in  the  infinite  concert  whose  glorious  music  the  Creator 
Composed.  Let  us  set  aside  for  a  moment  the  variety  of 
groupings  which  determine  the  succession  and  the  manifold 
aspects  of  these  forces,  and  there  will  remain,  as  constitu- 
ent principles  of  the  web  of  the  universe,  as  irreducible 
and  primordial  ingredients  of  the  world,  nothing  but  dy- 
namic points,  nothing  but  monads. 

The  term  of  the  rigorous  analysis  of  phenomena  is, 
definitely,  the  conception  of  an  infinity  of  centres  of  simi- 
lar and  unextended  forces,  of  energies  without  forms,  sim- 
ple and  eternal.  We  ask  what  these  forces  are,  and  we 
assert  in  answer  that  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish  them 
from  motion.  Force  may  be  conceived,  but  not  shaped  to 
the  fancy.  The  clearest  and  truest  thing  we  can  say  of  it 
is,  that  it  is  an  energy  analogous  to  that  whose  constant 
and  undeniable  presence  we  feel  dwelling  in  our  deepest 
selves.  "  The  only  force  of  which  we  have  consciousness," 
says  Henry  Sainte-Claire  Deville,  "  is  will."  Our  soul, 
which  gives  us  consciousness  of  force,  is  also  the  type  of  it, 
in  this  sense  that,  if  we  wish  to  pierce  to  the  elementary 
mechanisms  of  the  world,  we  are  imperiously  driven  to 


12  NATURE   AND   LIFE. 

compare  its  primal  activities  with  the  only  activity  of 
which  we  have  direct  knowledge  and  intuition,  that  is  to 
say,  with  that  admirable  spring  of  will,  so  prompt  and  sure, 
which  permits  us  every  moment  to  create  and  also  to  guide 
motion. 

Motion  may  serve  to  measure  force,  but  not  to  explain 
it.  It  is  as  subordinate  to  the  latter  as  speech  is  to  thought. 
In  truth,  motion  is  nothing  else  than  the  series  of  successive 
positions  of  a  body  in  different  points  of  space.  Force,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  the  tendency,  the  tension,  which  deter- 
mines the  body  to  pass  continually  from  one  to  the  other 
of  these  points ;  that  is  to  say,  the  power  by  which  this 
body,  considered  at  any  instant  in  its  course,  differs  from 
the  identical  body  at  rest.  Evidently  this  something  which 
is  in  one  of  these  two  bodies  and  is  not  in  the  other,  this 
something  that  mathematicians  call  the  quantity  of  motion, 
which  is  transformed,  on  a  sudden  stoppage  of  motion,  into 
a  certain  quantity  of  heat,  this  something  is  a  reality,  dis- 
tinct from  the  trajectory  itself ;  and  yet  nothing,  absolutely 
nothing,  outside  of  the  inner  revelation  of  our  soul,  gives 
us  the  means  of  understanding  what  this  initial  cause  of 
the  motive  forces  may  be.  The  distinguished  founder  of 
the  mechanical  theory  of  heat,  Robert  Mayer,  defines  force 
to  be  "  whatever  may  be  converted  into  motion."  There 
is  no  formula  that  so  well  expresses  the  fact  of  the  inde- 
pendence and  preeminence  of  force,  or  so  completely  in- 
cludes the  assertion  of  the  essential  reality  of  a  cause  pre- 
existing motion.  The  idea  of  force  is  one  of  those  ele- 
mentary forms  of  thought  from  which  we  cannot  escape, 
because  it  is  the  necessary  conclusion,  the  fixed  and  unde- 
stroyable  residue  from  the  analysis  of  the  world  in  the 
alembic  of  our  minds.  The  soul  does  not  find  it  out  by 
discursive  reasoning,  nor  prove  it  to  itself  by  way  of  theo- 
rem or  experiment ;  it  knows  it,  it  clings  to  it  by  natural 
and  unconquerable  affinity.  We  must  say  of  force  what 


THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  MATTER.  13 

Pascal  said  of  certain  fundamental  notions  of  the  same 
order:  "Urging  investigation  further  and  further,  we 
necessarily  arrive  at  primitive  words  which  cannot  be  de- 
fined, or  at  principles  so  clear  that  we  can  find  no  others 
which  are  clearer."  When  we  have  reached  these  prin- 
ciples, nothing  remains  but  to  study  one's  self  with  pro- 
foundest  meditation,  not  striving  to  give  an  image  to  those 
things  whose  essence  is  that  they  cannot  be  imagined. 
From  the  most  general  and  abstract  point  of  view,  then, 
matter  is  at  once  form  and  force,  that  is,  there  is  no  essen- 
tial difference  between  these  two  modes  of  substance. 
Form  is  simply  force  circumscribed,  condensed.  Force  is 
simply  form  indefinite,  diffused.  Such  is  the  net  result  of 
the  methodical  inquiries  of  modern  science,  and  one  which 
forces  itself  on  our  minds,  apart  from  any  svstematic  pre- 
meditation. It  is  of  consequence  to  add  that  the  merit  of 
having  formulated  it  very  clearly  and  noted  its  importance 
belongs  to  French  contemporary  philosophers,  particularly 
to  Charles  Leveque  and  Paul  Janet. 

II. 

If  the  web  of  things,  the  essence  of  matter,  is  one 
single  substance,  who  was  the  Orpheus  under  whose  spell 
these  materials  gathered,  ranged,  and  diversified  them- 
selves into  natures  of  so  many  kinds  ?  And,  first  of  all, 
how  can  the  extension  of  bodies  proceed  from  an  assem- 
bling of  unextended  principles  ?  The  answer  to  this  first 
question  does  not  seem  difficult  to  us.  Extension  exists 
prior  to  matter.  They  are  two  distinct  things,  without  any 
relation  of  causality  or  finality.  Matter  no  more  proceeds 
from  extension  than  extension  proceeds  from  matter.  This 
simple  remark  suffices  to  settle  the  difficulty  of  conceiving 
how  the  dimension  of  objects  results  from  a  group  of  dy- 
namic points  which  have  no  dimension:  Extension  exist- 
ing before  every  thing  else,  it  is  quite  clear  that,  when 


14  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

certain  primal  energies  come  into  union  to  give  rise, 
through  a  thousand  successive  complications,  to  phenom- 
ena and  to  bodies,  what  they  really  produce  is  not  the  ap- 
pearance of  extension,  which  is  the  mere  shadow  of  reality, 
but  it  is  that  collection  of  varied  and  diverse  activities 
which  enable  us  to  describe  and  define  phenomena  and 
bodies. 

It  is  no  longer  a  subject  of  doubt,  in  the  minds  of  sa- 
vants who  have  got  beyond  experimentation,  that  exten- 
sion is  an  image  and  a  show  rather  than  an  essential  con- 
stituent property  of  bodies.  The  extension  of  bodies  is  a 
phenomenon  which  takes  its  rise  in  the  collision  of  force 
with  our  minds.  Charles  de  Remusat,  so  long  ago  as  1842, 
gave  an  original  and  remarkable  demonstration  of  this. 
He  maintains  that  force  is  the  cause  of  extension,  meaning 
by  that  that  the  sensation  of  extension  is  a  modification 
of  our  sensibility,  occasioned  by  forces  analogous  to  those 
which  produce  sensations  of  a  more  complex  kind.  When . 
you  experience  an  electric  shock,  you  are  struck.  Percus- 
sion is  the  sensation  of  contact,  in  other  words,  of  impul- 
sion by  something  that  has  extension.  Now,  in  this  in- 
stance, Remusat  says,  the  cause  of  percussion,  electricity, 
has  no  extension.  Therefore,  he  adds,  either  electricity  is 
nothing,  or  else  it  is  a  force  which  affects  us  in  a  way  that 
may  be  compared  to  the  effect  of  extension.  So  that  a 
force,  wanting  the  usual  appearances  of  extension,  may 
produce  the  same  effects  on  us  that  a  solid  body  in  motion 
does.  Within  a  few  years  a  profound  metaphysician,  Magy, 
has  pointed  out  by  new  arguments  that  corporeal  exten- 
sion is  merely  a  show  which  springs  from  the  internal  reac- 
tion of  the  soul  against  the  impression  made  on  the  sen- 
sorium,  and  which  the  soul  translates  to  outward  bodies, 
by  a  law  analogous  to  that  which  makes  it  localize  in  the 
separate  organs  of  sense  the  impression  which  it  has  nev- 
ertheless perceived  only  in  the  brain.  Each  sensation  of 


THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  MATTER.  15 

taste,  smell,  light,  or  sound,  is  a  phenomenon  of  psycho- 
logical reaction  which  occurs  in  the  soul  when  it  is  teased 
with  a  certain  degree  of  energy  by  nerve-action,  which  in 
its  turn  depends  on  an  outward  action  ;  but  there  is  no  re- 
lation of  resemblance  between  the  latter  and  the  sensation 
it  provokes.  The  ether,  which,  by  its  vibrations  in  unison 
with  the  elements  of  our  retina,  produces  sensations  of 
light  in  us,  has  in  itself  no  luminosity.  The  proof  of  this 
is,  that  two  rays  of  light  meeting  under  certain  conditions 
may  annul  each  other,  and  produce  darkness.  Now,  Magy 
maintains  that  the  subjectivity  of  extension  is  of  the  same 
order  with  that  of  light.  Extension  in  general  is  explained 
by  purely  dynamic  reasons,  as  readily  as  that  particular 
extension  is  which  serves  as  a  kind  of  support  for  luminous 
phenomena,  which  evidently  result  from  vibrations  of  the 
unextended  principles.  Helmholtz,  in  his  latest  writings, 
fully  adopts  this  doctrine  of  corporeal  extension. 

We  thus  see  that  there  is  no  difficulty  in  reconciling  ex- 
tension with  unextended  forces,  and  the  phenomena  of  ex- 
tension with  principles  of  action ;  but  this  is  only  the  first 
part  of  the  problem,  and  it  becomes  necessary  now  to  as- 
cend from  these  unextended  forces  and  active  principles  to 
those  more  or  less  complex  manifestations  which  make  up 
the  infinite  universe,  adorning  space  with  imperishable 
variety.  Let  us  imagine  this  universe  filled  with  the  great- 
est conceivable  number  of  active  principles,  all  identical, 
diffused  uniformly  throughout  immensity,  and  consequently 
in  a  state  of  perfect  equilibrium.  All  will  be  torpid  in  ab- 
solute repose,  in  which  form  without  shape  and  force  with- 
out spring  will  be  as  though  they  were  not.  Between  a 
homogeneous,  motionless  substance,  identical  with  itself 
throughout  space  at  all  points,  and  nihility,  reason  per- 
ceives no  difference.  In  such  a  system,  nothing  has  weight, 
for  there  is  no  attracting  centre ;  heat  is  no  more  possible 
for  it  than  light,  since  these  two  forms  of  energy  are  bound 


16  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

up  with  the  existence  of  systems  of  unequal  vibrations,  of 
diversified  media,  and  varying  molecular  arrangements. 
A  fortiori,  the  phenomena  of  life  will  be  incompatible  with 
this  universal  unity  of  substance,  this  unchanging  identity 
of  force. 

The  objective  existence  of  things,  the  coming  into  re- 
ality of  phenomena,  can  only  be  conceived,  therefore,  as 
the  work  of  a  certain  number  of  differentiations  taking 
place  in  the  deep  of  that  universal  energy  of  primal  mat- 
ter, which  is  the  last  result  of  our  analysis  of  the  world. 
Motion,  of  itself  alone,  is  enough  to  explain  a  first  attri- 
bute of  that  energy,  namely,  resistance,  and  its  conse- 
quence, impenetrability ;  but  this  is  only  on  the  condition 
that  this  motion  shall  take  place  in  various  directions.1 
Two  forces  urged  in  opposite  directions,  and  coming  to  a 
meeting,  manifestly  resist  each  other.  It  is  probably  by 
collisions  of  this  sort  that  those  variable  condensations  of 
matter,  and  those  heterogeneous  groupings  of  which  the 
world  presents  the  spectacle,  have  been  determined.  A 
rotary  movement,  communicated  to  a  mass  without  weight, 
can  only  engender  concentric  spheres,  which  gravitate 
toward  each  other  in  consequence  of  pressure  by  the  inter- 
posing ether.  The  famous  experiments  of  Plateau  are  de- 
cisive in  this  respect.  That  accomplished  physicist  intro- 
duces oil  into  a  mixture  of  water  and  alcohol,  having 
exactly  equal  density  with  the  oil  itself.  He  inserts  a  me- 
tallic strip  into  the  midst  of  this  mass  of  oil,  which  is  free 

1  "  Any  relation  of  action  implies  at  least  twofoldness.  We  have  then 
at  once  dissimilarity,  and  it  would  be  more  correct  to  say,  action  takes 
place  only  between  dissimilars.  Between  like  things,  action  requires  at 
least  a  difference  of  place,  yet  even  with  that  difference  like  things  act 
but  slightly  on  each  other.  The  production  of  such  a  phenomenon  re- 
quires opposition  in  forces  between  them.  In  chemistry,  only  dissimilars 
act  on  each  other,  All  Nature  witnesses  that  a  certain  degree  of  differ- 
ence between  bodies  is  needed  for  their  mutual  action." — CHARLES 
MUSAT. 


THE   CONSTITUTION  OF  MATTER.  17 

from  the  action  of  any  force,  and  turns  it  about.  The  oil 
takes  the  form  of  a  sphere,  and,  as  soon  as  the  rotation 
grows  very  rapid,  breaks  up,  and  parts  into  a  number  of 
smaller  spheres.  The  celestial  spheres  were  probably 
formed  in  the  same  way,  and  an  exactly  similar  mechanical 
action  produces  those  clear  dew-drops,  glittering  like  dia- 
monds, on  the  leaves  of  plants. 

All  physical  phenomena,  whatever  their  nature,  are  at 
bottom  only  manifestations  of  one  and  the  same  primordial 
agent.     We  can  no  longer  question  this  general  conclusion 
of  all  modern  discoveries,  S6narmont  explicitly  says,  though 
it  is,  as  yet,  impossible  to  formulate  with  precision  its  laws 
and  its  particular  conditions.     If  this  be  true,  and  we  hope 
we  have  proved  it  to  be  so,  it  is  plain  that   those   con- 
ditional particularities  of  which  Senarmont  speaks,  that  is 
to  say,  those  diversified  manifestations  of  the  sole  agent 
to  which  he  alludes,  can  depend  only  on  differences  in  the 
motions  which  impel  it.     Now,  the  very  existence  of  these 
differences  necessarily  implies  a  coordinating  and  regulat- 
ing intelligence ;  but  how  much  more  extreme  is  the  ne- 
cessity for  such  a  cause  in  chemical  phenomena,  which  dis- 
play such  endless  complications  issuing  from  that  primal 
energy  to  which  every  thing  in  the  last  analysis  is  reduced ! 
We  have  seen  that  the  variety  of  those  stable  and  homo- 
geneous energies  known  under  the  name  of  simple  bodies, 
the  number  of  which  is  now  increased  to  sixty,  depends  on 
the  variety  of  the  vibrations  that  each  one  of  these  little 
worlds  performs.     This  is  the  earliest  intervention  of   a 
principle  of  difference.     This  principle  does  not  merely  de- 
termine the  multiplication  of  simple  bodies ;  it  also  acts  in 
any  one  element  with  such  intensity  that  the  same  element 
can  acquire  very  unlike  properties  and  attributes.     What 
things  are  more  heterogeneous  than  the  diamond  and  char- 
coal, or  than  common  phosphorus   and  amorphous  phos- 
phorus ?     Yet  charcoal  and  diamond  are  chemically  identi- 
2 


18  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

cal,  just  as  the  two  sorts  of  phosphorus  are.  These  cases 
of  isomery,  which  are  quite  numerous,  attest  with  the 
strongest  evidence  the  excessive  variability  of  which  com- 
binations of  force  are  capable.  When  we  see  the  same 
elements,  combined  in  the  same  weight-proportions,  pro- 
duce' sometimes  harmless  substances,  sometimes  terrible 
poisons,  in  one  case  evolve  colorless  or  dingy  products,  in 
another  brilliant  hues,  we  become  convinced  that  primal 
matter  is  of  little  consequence  in  comparison  with  the 
power  of  the  weaver  who  arranges  its  threads,  and  knows 
beforehand  what  the  aspect  of  the  web  will  be.  Besides, 
it  is  not  alone  in  the  whole  that  the  formative  principle  is 
displayed  ;  it  shows  forth  also  in  the  elements,  considered 
individually,  since  every  one  of  them  exhibits  tendencies, 
elective  affinities,  that  bear  witness  to  some  obscure  instinct 
toward  harmonious  completion. 

There  is  not  only  a  prodigious  variety  in  the  disposition 
of  the  atoms  which  make  up  molecules,  and  in  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  molecules  among  themselves,  but  this  arrange- 
ment is  governed,  besides,  by  admirable  geometric  laws. 
The  atoms  that  make  up  molecules  are  not  heaped  and 
flung  together  at  random  and  in  disorder ;  they  enter  into 
composition  only  in  fixed  proportions  and  in  fixed  direc- 
tions. Marc-Antoine  Gaudin  has  proved,  in  a  late  treatise 
devoted  entirely  to  these  refined  inquiries,  the  existence  of 
some  of  the  most  important  laws  in  the  geometry  of  atoms. 
This  ingenious  and  persevering  writer  demonstrates  that 
all  chemical  molecules,  whether  they  are  fitted  to  produce 
crystals  or  not,  are  formed  by  a  symmetrical  aggregation  of 
atoms.  The  latter  are  arranged  in  equilibrium  in  two  direc- 
tions, perpendicular  to  each  other,  one  parallel  to  the  axis 
of  grouping,  and  the  other  at  right  angles  to  that  axis,  so  as 
always  to  compose  a  symmetrical  figure.  The  most  compli- 
cated bodies,  so  soon  as  they  are  brought  under  the  law  of 
definite  proportions,  and  compose  chemical  species,  are  made 


THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  MATTER.  19 

up  of  molecules  in  which  the  atoms  are  grouped  in  prisms,  in 
pyramids,  in  a  word,  in  polyhedra  more  or  less  many-sided, 
but  always  of  perfect  regularity ;  so  that,  in  this  case,  the 
differentiation  is  regulated  with  marvelous  harmony. 

We  must  now  rise  another  degree,  and  pass  from  in- 
organic matter  to  living  matter.  What  is  it  that  distin- 
guishes the  latter  from  the  former  ?  When  we  make  the 
answer  depend  on  the  results  of  direct  experiment,  nothing 
is  easier  than  to  establish  the  differential  characteristics  of 
living  matter.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  organized,  that  is,  the 
anatomical  elements,  instead  of  being  homogeneous  and 
symmetrical  in  all  points  of  their  mass,  are  composed  by 
the  association  of  a  certain  number  of  different  substances, 
in  which  carbon  predominates,  and  which  are  termed  im- 
mediate organic  principles.1  Then  these  elements  grow. 
At  no  time  the  same  throughout,  as  to  the  substance  which 
makes  them  up,  they  are  in  a  state  of  unceasing  molecular 
renewal,  of  constant  metamorphosis,  of  simultaneous  and 
continuous  assimilation  and  disassimilation.  Besides,  the 
various  properties  these  elements  may  exhibit,  contractility, 
neurility,  and  so  on,  are,  in  consequence  of  the  growing 
state  that  characterizes  them,  in  so  unstable  a  condition  of 
equilibrium  that  the  slightest  variation  in  the  surrounding 
medium  is  enough  to  occasion  some  change  in  the  expres- 
sion of  their  activity ;  in  other  words,  they  have  excessive 
excitability  and  irritability.  Such,  at  least,  is  the  region 
within  which  physiology  is  limited ;  but  the  fact  which  it 
does  not  clearly  enough  bring  out,  yet  the  thing  which  is 
the  distinctive  mark  of  life,  is  the  harmonious  seeking  for 
each  other  of  all  these  vital  monads,  the  disposition  of 

1  "  The  structure  of  chemical  compounds  is  subject  only  to  mathemati- 
cal laws,  which  laws  do  not  control  that  of  organized  matter.  In  germs 
and  their  products  there  exists  a  want  of  symmetry  in  their  axes,  which 
indicates  a  formative  purpose,  or,  more  properly,  a  creative  omnipotence." 
— GAUDIN,  "Architecture  of  the  World  of  Atoms,"  p.  3. 


20  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

biological  energies  to  compose  groups  of  which  the  end  and 
the  reason  are  found  in  what  we  call  the  individual.  The 
differentiations  of  inorganic  matter  occur  in  molecules  that 
are  specific,  in  whatever  bulk  they  are  regarded.  The  dif- 
ferentiations of  living  matter  take  place  only  in  individuals 
whose  build  and  proportions  are  strictly  determined.  An 
iron  bar,  an  iron  crystal,  and  iron-dust,  are  all  still  iron. 
An  organic  substance  fitted  for  life  is  nothing,  whenever 
deprived  of  connection  with  an  organism.  It  can  display 
energy,  can  act,  in  a  word,  can  be,  so  far  as  to  be  a  living 
substance,  only  in  virtue  of  taking  place  and  rank  in  a 
certain  whole,  and  assuming  certain  dependencies  and  con- 
nections with  other  more  or  less  analogous  substances. 
By  itself  it  is  not  distinguished  in  essence  from  dead  mat- 
ter. It  is  raised  to  the  rank  and  clothed  with  the  dignity 
of  life  only  from  the  time  of  its  reception  into  that  gather- 
ing of  which  the  steps  all  move  toward  the  same  end,  which 
is  the  functional  action  of  the  organism,  and  the  perpetu- 
ation of  the  species. 

What  takes  place  in  the  ovule  is  a  miniature  image  of 
what  takes  place  in  the  universe.  The  differentiations  oc- 
curring in  that  mucous  drop  are  a  copy  of  the  differentia- 
tions unfolding  and  expanding  in  the  ocean  of  the  world. 
It  is  at  first  a  microscopic  mass,  homogeneous,  uniform  in 
all  its  parts,  a  collection  of  energies  identical  with  each 
other,  and  the  group  of  which  does  not  differ  perceptibly 
from  a  drop  of  gelatine,  hanging,  hardly  seen,  from  a 
needle's  point.  Yet  soon  a  dull  motion  spontaneously  stirs 
these  nearly  inert  atoms,  and  this  motion  is  expressed  by  a 
first  condensation  of  the  ovular  or  vitelline  substance,  which 
is  the  germinating  vesicle.  This  passes  off,  but  at  the  same 
time  other  vibrations  arrange  the  molecules  of  this  shape- 
less, transparent  microcosm,  in  the  order  of  more  com- 
plicated groups.  The  vitelline  substance  swells  toward 
the  surface,  where  it  forms  the  polar  globules,  while  at  the 


THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  MATTER.  21 

centre  it  thickens  to  produce  the  vitelline  nucleus.  This  in 
turn  cleaves  and  breaks  into  a  great  number  of  secondary 
nuclei,  around  each  of  which  the  ovular  mass  distributes 
itself  while  contracting.  Instead  of  a  single  cell,  the  ovule, 
which  has  enlarged,  is  now  found  to  contain  a  great  num- 
ber. These  cells,  called  blastodermic,  then  tend  to  arrange 
themselves  in  two  layers,  two  leaflets  placed  back  to  back, 
within  which  the  elements  of  the  embryo  appear,  and  little 
by  little  develop,  pursuing  a  continuous  growth,  in  which 
forces  becoming  forms  go  on  incessantly  producing  and 
multiplying  new  forces  and  new  forms. 

Now,  these  separations  and  distributions,  these  order- 
ings  and  classifyings,  these  harmonies  that  are  set  up  in 
the  ovule  to  compose  by  slow  degrees  the  structure  of  the 
embryo,  reveal  a  principle  of  differentiation  analogous  to 
that  which  has  caused  the  infinite  variety  of  things  we  see 
come  forth  from  the  confused  mass  of  cosmic  energies. 
There  is,  as  many  biologists  had  felt  assured,  and  as  Coste 
has  had  the  glory  of  clearly  demonstrating  in  a  work  which 
is  one  of  the  noblest  scientific  monuments  of  this  age, 
there  is  a  force  which  gives  reality,  direction,  life,  to  the 
forms  of  organized  matter  in  the  egg.  All  eggs  are  alike 
at  first.  There  is  a  complete  similitude  in  structure  and 
substance  between  those  which  will  produce  a  lion  and 
those  which  will  produce  a  mouse.  The  forms  are  iden- 
tical, though  the  futures  of  those  forms  differ.  It  is,  as 
Coste  very  well  says,  that  "  beneath  that  form,  and  beyond 
what  the  eye  views,  there  is  something  which  sight  cannot 
reach,  something  which  contains  in  itself  the  sufficient 
reason  for  all  those  differences  now  concealed  under  unity 
of  configuration,  and  to  become  visible  only  later."  This 
guiding  idea,  which  Coste  has  brought  forward,  and  which 
is  admitted  by  all  physiologists  at  this  day,  is  as  far  from 
issuing  out  of  the  elementary  forces  of  nutrition  as  the 
painter's  picture  is  from  being  the  creature  of  his  palette. 


22  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

Yet  nothing  in  the  ovule  reveals  its  hidden  and  potent 
virtually.  Claude  Bernard,  who  has  repeated  Coste's  ideas 
on  this  subject,  dwells  strongly  on  the  guiding  force  which 
is  in  the  egg,  and  those  savants  who  agree  with  Robin  in 
denying  this  force,  so  far  as  it  acts  on  the  totality  of  ele- 
ments in  the  embryo,  regard  it  at  least  as  shared,  distrib- 
uted, and  acting  in  each  of  these  elements  separately,  which, 
at  bottom,  is  the  same  thing.  We  see,  in  any  case,  that 
there  is  in  the  inmost  depth,  and  there  dates  from  the  most 
rudimentary  sketch  of  the  organized  being,  the  fixed  and 
formed  idea  of  those  differences  in  choice  and  those  sym- 
pathies in  work  whose  system  shall  build  up  the  individual. 
The  differential  coefficient  of  organized  matter  is  thus  of  a 
far  higher  order  than  that  of  mineral  matter.  It  is  this 
which  is  a  distinct  and  peculiar  result  from  the  impotence 
which  experimental  science  betrays  more  plainly  every 
day,  when  attempting  to  convert  physico-chemical  activi- 
ties into  energies  of  the  vital  order.  Even  could  this  con- 
version really  be  effected,  and  it  is  not  metaphysically 
impossible  that  it  might  be,  the  existence  of  a  spiritual 
principle  of  differentiation  would  be  in  no  wise  put  in 
doubt.  Hitherto,  at  least,  such  a  conversion  seems  beyond 
the  reach  of  man. 

Something  that  yet  more  completely  baffles  his  research, 
while  commanding  too  his  highest  admiration,  is  the  su- 
preme degree  of  complexity  together  with  refinement  of 
that  energy  which  is  the  soul.  Human  thought  is  the  sum 
of  all  the  forces  of  Nature,  because  it  assimilates  them  all, 
while  distinguishing  between  them,  by  the  work  that  it 
performs  upon  sensations.  Sensations  are  to  thought  what 
food  is  to  growth.  Growth  is  not  a  result  of  feeding ; 
thought  is  not  a  result  of  sensations.  Nutrition,  in  shap- 
ing the  living  organs,  determines  the  differentiation  of  the 
concrete  forms  in  the  individual's  substance ;  thought,  in 
shaping  general  ideas,  determines  the  differentiation  of  the 


THE   CONSTITUTION  OF  MATTER.  23 

abstract  forces  in  the  world.  Thus  thinking  energy  is  as 
much  superior  to  sensations  as  nutritive  energy  is  to  ali- 
ments. In  another  order  of  thought,  we  might  compare  the 
soul  to  a  paper  covered  with  writing  in  sympathetic  ink. 
At  ordinary  temperatures,  the  letters  are  unseen,  but  they 
appear  in  fine  color  whenever  brought  near  the  fire.  So 
the  soul  has  within  itself  dim  marks  and  confused  shapes, 
which  sensation  tints  and  brightens.  We  have  seen  that,  in 
the  mucous  drop,  a  two  hundred  and  fiftieth  part  of  an  inch 
through,  called  the  ovule,  the  forces"  and  tendencies  of  the 
whole  nutritive  and  intellectual  life  of  man  lie  prisoned  and 
asleep.  So,  too  in  that  force  without  form  or  extension 
which  is  the  soul,  there  dwells  a  miniature  picture  of  the 
whole  universe,  and,  by  some  mystic  grace  of  God,  a  dream, 
as  it  were,  of  that  God  himself.  Thought  consists  in  be- 
coming acquainted  with  all  the  details  of  that  picture  in 
little,  and  unfolding  its  meaning.  Thus,  that  which  makes 
the  whole  reality  of  material  things  is  form,  and  form,  such 
as  it  is  shown  to  us  in  the  world,  is  at  once  a  principle  of 
differentiation  and  a  principle  of  agreement ;  in  other  words, 
it  is  the  work  of  an  intelligence.  Body  and  motion  are 
mere  phenomena.  The  first  is  only  an  image  of  substance, 
the  last  an  image  of  action ;  but  substance  and  action  both 
are  only  effects  of  intelligent  force,  that  is,  of  activity 
operating  in  view  of  a  result.  That  activity,  however,  pre- 
sents infinitely  varied  degrees  of  condensation,  and  we  may 
say,  with  Maudsley :  "  One  equivalent  of  chemical  force 
corresponds  to  several  equivalents  of  lower  force  ;  and  one 
equivalent  of  vital  force  to  several  equivalents  of  chemical 
force."  It  is  thus  that  modern  science  unties  the  Gordian 
knot  of  the  composition  of  matter. 

m. 

A  first   exclusively  analytical  view  of  the  world  has 
led  us  to  a  first  undeniable  certainty,  the  existence  of  a 


24  NATUKE  AND  LIFE. 

principle  of  energy  and  motion.  A  second  view  of  the 
universe,  exclusively  synthetic,  leads  us,  as  we  have  seen, 
to  another  certainty,  which  is  the  existence  of  a  principle 
of  differentiation  and  harmony.  This  principle  is  what  is 
called  mind.  Thus  mind  is  not  substance,  but  it  is  the 
law  of  substance ;  it  is  not  force,  but  it  is  the  revealer  of 
force.  It  is  not  life,  but  it  makes  life  exist.  It  is  not 
thought,  but  it  is  the  consciousness  of  thought.  A  distin- 
guished English  savant,  Carpenter,  has  said  lately,  with 
decisive  clearness,  "  Mind  is  the  sole  and  single  source  of 
power."  In  a  word,  it  is  not  reality,  yet  in  it  and  by  it 
realities  are  defined  and  differentiated,  and  consequently 
exist.  Instead  of  saying  that  mind  is  a  property  of  mat- 
ter, we  should  say  that  matter  is  a  property  of  mind. 
Of  all  the  properties  of  matter,  in  fact,  there  is  not  one,  no, 
not  a  single  one,  which  is  not  bestowed  on  it  by  mind. 
The  true  explanation,  the  only  philosophy  of  Nature,  is 
thus  a  kind  of  spiritualistic  dynamism,  very  different  from 
materialism,  or  from  the  mechanism  of  certain  contemporary 
schools. 

Materialism  is  false  and  imperfect,  because  it  stops  short 
at  atoms,  in  which  it  localizes  those  properties  for  which 
atoms  supply  no  cause,  and  because  it  neglects  force  and 
spirit,  which  are  the  only  means  we  have,  constituted  as 
our  souls  are,  of  conceiving  the  activity  and  the  appearings 
of  beings.  It  is  false  and  imperfect,  because  it  stops  half- 
way, and  treats  compound  and  resolvable  factors  as  simple 
and  irreducible  ones  ;  and  because  it  professes  to  represent 
the  world  by  shows,  without  attempting  to  explain  the  pro- 
duction of  those  shows.  In  a  word,  it  sees  the  cause  of 
diversity  where  it  is  not.  and  fails  to  see  it  where  it  does 
exist.  The  source  of  differentiations  cannot  be  in  energy 
itself;  it  must  be  in  a  principle  apart  from  that  energy,  in  a 
superior  will  and  consciousness,  of  which  we  have,  doubt- 
less, only  a  dim  and  faulty  idea,  but  as  to  which  we  can  yet 


THE   CONSTITUTION  OF  MATTER.  25 

affirm  that  they  have  some  analogy  with  the  inner  light 
which  fills  us,  and  which  we  shed  forth  from  us,  and  which 
teaches  us,  by  its  mysterious  contact  with  the  outer  world, 
the  infinite  order  of  the  universe.1 

The  danger  from  materialism  is  not,  as  we  usually  in- 
cline to  think,  corruption  of  morals  by  degradation  of  the 
soul.  Too  much  use,  for  censure's  sake,  has  been  made, 
against  this  system,  of  the  seeming  ease  with  which  its 
professors  have  convinced  themselves  that  they  cut  up  by 
the  roots  the  very  principles  of  morality  and  duty.  Histo- 
ry proves,  by  examples  too  infamous,  that  barbarism  and 
license  are  the  privilege  of  no  philosophic  sect.  The  real 
enemies  of  society  always  have  been,  and  always  will  be, 
the  ignorant  and  the  fanatical,  and  it  must  be  frankly 
owned  that,  if  these  exist  within  the  pale  of  materialism, 
there  are  quite  enough  of  them  outside.  The  danger  in 
the  doctrine  which  reverses  the  natural  relation  of  things, 
and  asserts  that  spirit  is  the  product  of  matter,  when  in 
truth  matter  is  a  product  of  spirit,  this  danger  is  of  another 
kind ;  materialism  is  fatal  to  the  development  of  the  experi- 
mental sciences  themselves.  If,  in  such  a  case,  the  exam- 
ple of  men  of  genius  might  be  appealed  to,  how  eloquent 
would  be  the  testimony  of  the  two  greatest  physicists  of 
this  age,  Ampere  and  Faraday,  both  so  earnestly  con- 
vinced, so  religiously  possessed  by  the  reality  of  the  un- 
seen world !  But  there  are  other  arguments.  "  All  that 
we  see  of  the  world,"  says  Pascal,  "  is  but  an  impercep- 
tible scratch  in  the  vast  range  of  Nature."  The  claim  of 

1  "  That  cause,  mould,  or  type,  of  all  constitutions  of  beings,"  says  De 
Remusat,  in  a  famous  essay  on  this  subject,  "  that  general  Nature,  the 
original  or  principle  of  all  natures,  that  force  which  fashions,  specifies, 
and  characterizes  all  these  kinds  of  beings,  cannot  be  conceived  of  as 
a  constant  property  of  any  being,  because  the  diversity  between  all  these 
beings  is  what  it  has  to  account  for.  I  look  upon  this  as  the  strongest 
proof  of  the  presence  of  a  will  and  an  intelligence  exerting  their  power 
throughout  all  Nature." 


26  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

mere  experimentalism  is  that  it  may  sentence  men  to  the 
fixed  and  stubborn  contemplation  of  this  scratch.  What 
folly !  All  the  history  of  the  development  of  the  sciences 
proves  that  important  discoveries  all  proceed  from  a  differ- 
ent feeling,  which  is  that  of  continuation  of  forces  beyond 
the  limits  of  observation,  and  of  a  harmony  in  relations, 
overruling  the  singularities  and  deformities  of  detached 
experiences.  To  hedge  one's  self  within  what  can  be  com- 
puted, weighed,  and  demonstrated,  to  trust  such  evidence 
only,  and  bar  one's  self  inside  the  prison  of  the  senses,  to 
hush  or  scorn  the  suggestions  of  the  spirit,  our  only  true 
light,  because  it  is  the  spark  of  the  flame  that  vivifies  all — 
this  is,  deny  it  or  not,  the  condition  and  the  subject  state 
of  materialism.  Only  reason  can  conceive  the  fixity,  the 
generality,  and  the  universality  of  relations,  and  all  sa- 
vants admit  that  the  destiny  of  science  is  to  establish  laws 
possessing  these  three  characteristics ;  but  to  admit  that  is 
to  confess  by  implication  that  partial,  incoherent,  imper- 
fect, relative  details  must  undergo  a  refining,  a  thorough 
conversion  in  the  alembic  of  the  mind,  whence  they  issue, 
with  so  new  an  aspect  and  meaning,  that  what  before 
seemed  most  important  becomes  as  mere  an  accessory  as  it 
is  possible  to  be,  and  that  which  looked  most  ephemeral 
takes  its  place  among  eternal  things. 

The  conception  of  atoms  dates  from  the  highest  antiq- 
uity. Leucippus  and  Democritus,  the  masters  of  Epicurus, 
several  centuries  before  the  Christian  era,  taught  that  mat- 
ter is  composed  of  invisible  but  indestructible  corpuscles, 
the  number  of  which  is  as  boundless  as  the  vastness  of  the 
space  in  which  they  are  diffused.  These  corpuscles  are 
solid,  endowed  with  shape  and  motion.  The  difference  of 
their  forms  regulates  the  difference  of  their  movements, 
and  consequently  of  their  characteristics.  The  conception 
of  a  principle  guiding  these  diversities,  that  is,  of  an  intel- 
ligence as  the  supreme  cause  of  differentiation,  is  not  less 


THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  MATTER.  27 

ancient.  "All  was  chaotic,"  Anaxagoras  of  Clazomene 
said ;  "  an  intelligence  intervened,  and  regulated  all."  Pla- 
to, after  defining  matter  as  an  existence  very  hard  to  under- 
stand, an  eternal  place,  never  perishing,  and  furnishing  a 
stage  for  whatever  begins  to  be,  not  the  subject  of  sense 
and  yet  perceptible,  and  of  which  we  only  catch  glimpses 
as  in  a  dream,  tells  us  that  the  supreme  ruler  "  took  this 
mass  which  was  whirling  in  unchecked  and  unguided  move- 
ment, and  made  order  come  out  of  disorder."  And  this 
ordering  grows  real  in  conformity  with  ideas,  the  proto- 
types of  things,  whose  totality  makes  the  divine  essence 
itself.  The  world's  activities  are  reflections  of  God's 
thoughts.  To  these  two  fundamental  notions,  that  of  at- 
omism and  that  of  idealism,  Aristotle  added  a  third,  that 
of  dynamism.  As  he  holds,  indeterminate  matter,  in  the 
highest  degree  of  abstraction,  is  without  attributes.  If  it 
tends  always  toward  form  and  action,  that  is  because  it 
contains  a  principle  of  power,  a  force.  Force  is,  in  Aris- 
tfltle's  view,  the  principle  of  form.  The  latter  is  actually 
existent.  We  have  here  the  whole  ancient  philosophy 
regarding  the  world.  Modern  philosophy  has  taught  us 
nothing  different.  Atomism,  strengthened  and  widened 
by  Descartes,  and  borrowed  from  him  by  Newton,  is  iden- 
tical at  bottom  with  that  held  by  the  teachers  of  Epicurus. 
In  the  same  way,  Leibnitz's  dynamism  is  only  a  revival 
of  Aristotle's.  And,  just  as  Descartes  and  Leibnitz  repro- 
duce the  old  Greek  masters,  contemporary  science  renews 
Descartes  and  Leibnitz. 

"  But  what !  "  it  will  be  said ;  "  always  repeating, 
never  inventing,  must  that  be  the  fixed  doom  of  meta- 
physics ? "  Not  so ;  these  renewals  contain  continuous 
growth  toward  perfection.  The  old  truth  has  been  pre- 
served, in  its  original  sense,  but  it  has  been  constantly 
illuminated  and  made  exact  in  the  lapse  of  time  by  happy 
efforts  of  speculative  genius.  Greek  atomism  left  an  im- 


%8  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

mense  chasm  which  Descartes  filled  by  the  conception  of 
ether,  the  most  marvelous  of  modern  creations.    Aristotle's 
dynamism  was  vague,  and  Leibnitz  gave  it  precision  by 
showing  that  the  type  and  the  fountain  of  force  is  and  can 
be  nothing  else  than  mind.     He  lifted  the  conception   of 
force  to  the  conception  of  soul.     And  what  has  been  done 
in  our  days?     We  have  computed  the  motion,  we  have 
detected  the  action,  of  that  subtile  ether ;  we  have  proved 
the  absolute  imperishableness  of  force ;  we  have  shown  by 
many  instances  the  fundamental  identity  of  the  appetitive 
and  elective  powers  of  chemistry  and  crystallography  with 
those  which   psychology  reveals.     Here  is  the   future  of 
science  and  of  metaphysics.     Both  will  henceforth  follow 
in  their  development  the  very  course  they  have  held  to 
since  the  first  day;  they  have  never,  like  Penelope,  de- 
stroyed yesterday's  work  the  day  after.     They  have  pur- 
sued the  same  end  with  continuous  advance,  that  is,  the 
conception  of  invisible  principles,  and  of  the  ideal  essence 
of  things.    This  end  will  remain  the  ever-unattained  goal  cff 
their  ambition.     The  farther  we  shall  advance,  the  more 
clearly  and  convincingly  will  they  persist  in  defining  those 
primal  forces  and  elementary  activities  half  guessed  at  from 
the  very  dawn  of  thought.    Never  false  to  themselves,  they 
will  always,  at  whatever  point  in  history   we  appeal  to 
them,  represent  the  human  soul  unchanging  in  its  nature, 
its  powers,  and  its  hopes.     Let  them  never  muse  over  the 
mournful  question  whether  the  work  of  the  past  will  not 
vanish  at  some  time  without  leaving  a  trace.     All  of  it  will 
survive,  and  from  this  confidence  those  who  strive  to  in- 
crease the  sum  of  knowledge  draw  their  courage  and  con- 
solation. 

The  conceptions  of  matter  now  entertained  agree  not 
only  with  the  boldest  deductions  and  most  splendid  dis- 
coveries of  contemporary  science,  as  well  as  with  the  oldest 
truths  and  the  most  instinctive  faiths  of  humanity,  but  also 


THE   CONSTITUTION   OF  MATTER.  29 

with  those  loftier  convictions,  more  precious  and  as  solid, 
which  form  our  moral  and  religious  inheritance,  and  the 
crowning  prerogative  of  our  nature.  The  most  advanced 
science  rejects  none  of  the  traditions  and  objects  to  none 
of  the  great  lasting  sentiments  of  past  ages.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  fixes  the  stamp  of  certainty  on  truths  hitherto  lack- 
ing adequate  proofs,  and  rescues  from  the  attacks  of  skep- 
ticism all  that  it  coveted  as  its  prey.  No  proof  of  the  soul's 
immortality  is  so  strong  as  that  we  have  drawn  from 
the  necessary  simplicity  and  eternity  of  all  the  principles 
of  force.  Nothing  bears  witness  so  powerfully  to  the 
majestic  reality  of  a  God  as  the  spectacle  of  those  diversi- 
ties, all  harmonious,  which  rule  the  infinite  range  of  forces, 
and  bind  in  unity  the  ordered  pulses  of  the  world.  Enough 
has  been  said  to  prove  the  truth  that  the  moral  greatness 
and  the  intellectual  dignity  of  a  nation  must  always  be 
measured  by  the  standard  of  the  esteem  and  credit  it  accords 
to  high  metaphysical  speculations,  and  chiefly  to  such  as 
relate  to  the  constitution  of  matter.  Meditation  on  the 
constitution  of  matter  is  the  best  method  of  teaching  us  to 
know  mind,  and  to  understand  that  every  thing  must  be 
referred  to  it,  because  from  it  every  thing  flows. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE,  AND  LEIB- 
NITZ'S IDEAS. 

WHILE  science  in  our  day  is  pouring  unexpected  floods 
of  light  upon  the  solution  of  those  problems  which  are  at 
once  the  highest  and  the  most  subtile  in  natural  philoso- 
phy, the  great  systems  of  metaphysics  become  an  interest- 
ing subject  of  review.     Forgotten  or  despised  by  a  science 
.  wholly  devoted  to  experiment,  given  over  to  the  routine 
judgment  of  unprogressive  criticism,  those   systems   had 
ceased  to  have  any  worth  except  as  proofs  and  records  of 
laborious   study.      Subjected   to   fresh   investigation   and 
searching  exposition,  they  now  reveal  proportions  worthy 
the  attention  of  the  savant,  who  may  find  in  them  conclu- 
sions expressed  with  a  breadth  that  can  cover  the  wider 
range  of  the  results  he  has  himself  reached.     A  movement 
of  this  kind  in  favor  of  the  philosophy  of  Leibnitz  is  just 
now  taking  place.     The  buried  germs  of  that  philosophy 
had   long   been   slowly   developing,   under   the   brooding 
thought  of  later  science,  and  we  find  them  now  breaking 
forth  with  singular  power  of  life.     The  conception  of  spir- 
itual and  material  principles  formed   by   the  Hanoverian 
thinker  seeming  indisputably  the  most  probable  and  plau- 
sible one,  we  are  forced  to  give  up  our  settled  and  accepted 
ideas  as  to  those  things,  and  to  adopt  another,  confessed 
by  scientists  and  metaphysicians  alike  to  be  effective  in 
removing  many  difficulties.    Nor  does  that  correspondence 
between  the  maxims  of  Leibnitz  and  the  results  of  most 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE— LEIBNITZ'S  IDEAS.         31 

modern  research  dwell  in  the  general  philosophy  of  Nature 
only;  it  reaches  also  to  special  branches  of  knowledge, 
which  often  exhibit  the  existence  as  facts  of  what  were 
conjectures  on  the  part  of  the  author  of  the  "  New  Essays." 
Thus  the  slow  progress  of  these  sciences  has  reached  the 
revelation  of  truths  seized  by  the  thinker's  rapid  intuition. 
This  consideration  increases  our  admiration  for  that  daring 
genius  who  pierces  with  so  natural  an  ease  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  secret  springs  of  the  world,  as  if  he  had  won 
his  way  to  communion  with  the  absolute. 

Leibnitz's  intellect,  indeed,  could  not  tolerate  either 
the  geometrical  exactness  or  the  unyielding  persistence 
displayed  by  that  of  Descartes.  All  the  ideas  of  the  latter 
are  deduced  by  rule  and  method;  all  his  systems  are  rigid- 
ly disposed  in  order;  he  reveres  precise  lines  and  clear 
drawing.  Leibnitz  has  the  ways  of  a  colorist ;  he  goes  on 
without  rule,  or  sequence,  or  control,  almost  by  starts, 
flinging  out  his  ideas  here  and  -there,  as  his  fancy  bids, 
whensoever  and  howsoever  reflection  or  impulsive  intuition 
hint  them  to  him.  Incessantly  diverted  from  one  thought 
to  another,  he  expatiates  on  the  various  subjects  that  at- 
tract him,  instead  of  arranging  his  conceptions  in  an  order- 
ly whole.  For  him,  philosophy  seems  like  a  contrasting 
relief  from  the  profound  and  tedious  studies  that  employ 
his  sustained  attention  and  the  controversies  in  which  he 
displays  extraordinary  activity.  He  loves  action  and  social 
intercourse.  He  aims  at  being  a  statesman.  If  he  gives 
himself  up  to  metaphysics,  he  handles  the  most  intricate 
questions  with  simple  ease,  but  in  a  manner  indirectly,  and 
solves  them  by  deep  sayings.  Clearly  that  pursuit  is  not 
the  great  business  of  his  life,  but  is  its  dignified  amuse- 
ment. In  matter  and  in  manner  alike,  Descartes  and 
himself  are  opposed.  They  agree  neither  as  to  methods 
nor  as  to  conclusions.  They  are  at  variance  upon  first 
causes,  upon  final  causes,  upon  man,  the  world,  the  soul, 


32  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

and  God.  The  demon  of  geometry,  accused  of  having  been 
the  evil  genius  of  Descartes,  never  tormented  Leibnitz ;  his 
philosophy  does  not  issue  from  that  source.  Nevertheless, 
that  philosophy  is  a  star  that,  after  seeming  eclipse,  rises 
anew  to  illuminate  us.  In  the  light  of  its  rays,  it  may  be 
unwittingly,  sciences  gain  unlooked-for  power,  and  are  in- 
vigorated by  grand  inspirations.  Be  its  term  of  revolution 
long  or  brief,  it  will  have  been  the  guiding  star,  through 
all  the  course  of  its  circuit,  for  the  most  useful'  and  produc- 
tive studies.  We  shall  attempt  to  prove  this  assertion ;  but 
first  we  must  renew  the  recollection  of  the  principles  lying 
at  the  foundation  of  Leibnitz's  metaphysics,  and  the  too- 
unfamiliar  aggregate  of  his  scientific  teachings. 


Our  senses  are  struck  by  an  endless  variety  of  per- 
plexed and  intertangled  phenomena ;  our  mind  is  a  restless, 
limitless  ocean,  full  to  overflow  of  impressions,  thoughts, 
and  longings.  By  what  means  do  we  attain  the  concep- 
tion of  any  single  distinct  thing  in  this  measureless  chaos  ? 
By  unceasing  action  and  reaction  of  the  external  upon 
ourselves,  and  of  ourselves  upon  the  external.  We  begin 
by  dividing  the  Tfrom  the  not  T,  and  this  process  gives  us 
the  perception  of  a  profound  difference  between  these  two 
terms.  The  not  Z,  the  external,  impresses  us  at  once,  from 
the  most  general  point  of  view,  that  of  motions  and  forms, 
with  something  purely  geometrical;  but  we  also  discern 
in  it  another,  more  hidden  element,  which  Leibnitz  dis- 
cusses admirably;  that  is,  resistance,  spring,  inward  and 
latent  force.  At  the  bottom  of  those  phenomenal  shows, 
which  Descartes  reduces  to  what  he  calls  material  points, 
and  to  motion,  the  Hanoverian  philosopher  detects  a. very 
different  notion,  that  of  "  force  not  myself,"  as  Maine  de 
Biran  uses  the  expression,  in  virtue  of  which  the  external 
object  resists  the  effort  of  will,  limits  and  confines  it,  and 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE— LEIBNITZ'S  IDEAS.          33 

reacts  against  our  own  force  as  strongly  as  our  own  force 
acts  to  surmount  it.  Whether  this  resistance  makes  itself 
known  directly,  in  the  immediate  apperception  of  the 
effort  put  forth  by  the  I  outside  of  itself,  or  whether  the 
mind  clothes  it  in  some  other  conception,  that  force  is  de- 
finitively conceived  in  the  same  way  as  the  I  is  conceived, 
as  a  pure  and  absolute  category,  with  no  appreciable 
shape.  This  active  force,  Leibnitz  holds,  differs  from  bare 
force  of  which  the  schools  talk,  in  this  respect,  that  the 
entire  power,  or  faculty^  of  the  scholastics,  is  only  the  im- 
minent possibility  of  action,  which  still  requires,  before 
passing  into  action,  an  impulse  from  without ;  but  the  active 
force  we  speak  of  intends  a  kind  of  actuality  which  holds 
a  middle  place  between  the  power  to  act  and  the  act  itself, 
and  takes  effect  as  soon  as  the  obstacle  is  removed.  As  a 
clear  illustration,  take  the  instance  of  a  weight  stretching 
the  cord  that  holds  it  up,  or  of  a  strung  bow.  Or,  again, 
we  cannot  possibly  describe  in  what  respect  a  body  in 
motion,  at  each  one  of  the  points  it  successively  occupies, 
differs  from  a  body  at  rest,  unless  we  add  that  at  each  of 
those  points  it  tends  to  go  onward. 

The  mind  thus  takes  in,  by  the  method  of  metaphysical 
abstraction,  the  primitive  capacities  of  action,  the  actuali- 
ties, the  powers  that  give  to  matter  its  dynamic  charac- 
teristics. Leibnitz  considers  these  capacities,  to  which  he 
also  gives  the  name  of  monads,  as  real  and  absolute  prin- 
ciples, the  sum  of  which  in  Nature  is  always  the  same, 
while  the  quantity  of  motion  in  Nature  is  variable.  Every 
sort  of  phenomenon  resolves  itself  into  these  substantial 
unities,  the  number  of  which  is  infinite,  and  which  are  the 
only  mode  we  have  of  conceiving  bodies  and  souls.  Atoms 
of  matter  are  contrary  to  reason — apart  from  their  being 
themselves  made  up  of  parts  —  because,  however  invin- 
cible the  attachment  of  one  part  to  another  may  be,  that 
does  not  alter  the  fact  of  their  diversity.  There  exist  only 


34  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

atoms  of  substance,  that  is,  real  unities,  absolutely  devoid 
of  parts,  which  are  the  sources  of  action,  the  first  principles 
in  the  composition  of  things,  and  the  last  elements,  so  to 
speak,  in  the  analysis  of  substances.  These  might  be 
called,  as  Leibnitz  calls  them,  metaphysical  points :  they 
possess  some  vitality,  and  a  kind  of  perception ;  and  mathe- 
matical points  are  the  mode  employed  in  using  them  to 
express  the  universe;  but,  when  corporeal  substances  are 
compressed,  the  aggregate  of  their  organs  makes  but  one 
physical  point,  as  we  regard  it.  Thus  physical  points  only 
seem  to  be  indivisible,  but  are  not  really  so ;  mathematical 
points  are  exact,  but  they  are  only  modes  of  thought. 
Nothing  is  complete  and  real  except  metaphysical  points, 
or  points  of  substance  (the  forms  or  souls  of  Leibnitz),  and 
without  them  no  reality  would  exist,  since  without  true 
units  there  can  be  no  multitude. 

Points  of  substance,  or  monads,  without  extension  or 
form,  are  then  truly  the  inner  and  specific  forces  of  things. 
We  can  conceive  them,  but  cannot  shape  their  image.  Just 
as  we  should  be  incapable  of  knowledge  if  we  had  not  the 
signs  of  language,  so,  without  the  support  of  those  repre- 
sentations to  the  senses  furnished  by  body  and  motion,  we 
must  remain  ignorant  of  force.  They  do  not,  however, 
help  us  to  escape  the  inference  that  force  is  the  reality  of 
which  body  and  motion  are  merely  the  concrete  and  sen- 
sible images,  not  intelligible  ones.  Briefly,  there  is  some- 
thing more  in  the  world  than  a  display  of  phenomena,  some- 
thing more  than  visible  forms  and  express  motion  :  there  is 
energy,  spring,  concealed  activity  at  rest,  concentrated  and 
condensed  inner  potency,  ever  ready  to  be  translated  into 
numberless  appearances.  Beyond  perception  and  without 
extension,  these  mother-forces,  fertile  sources  of  all  action 
and  all  life,  compose,  as  Leibnitz  teaches,  the  very  essence 
of  things. 

How  do  these  forces  engender  bodies  and  souls,  and 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE— LEIBNITZ'S  IDEAS.         35 

what  are  the  latter' s  mutual  relations  ?  On  this  subject 
Leibnitz  develops  completely  original  ideas.  Souls  are 
monads  of  more  perfect  kind  and  higher  activity,  the  prin- 
ciples of  all  those  forces  that  are  specially  translated  into 
organization,  life,  thought,  etc.  There  are  souls  every- 
where—if not  thinking  souls,  at  least  forces  that  have  the 
power  of  occasioning  appearances  resembling  those  of  life. 
Leibnitz  thus  holds  that  the  number  of  souls  is  infinite,  and 
that  there  is  no  portion  of  matter,  how  small  soever  it  may 
be,  in  which  a  living  actuality  is  not  always  found ;  but, 
just  as  the  monads  of  mere  matter  are  manifested  by  it,  the 
monads  of  organized  matter  are  manifested  by  organization. 
The  perfection  of  the  substance  accords  with,  and  is  propor- 
tioned to,  that  of  its  original.  While  Descartes  makes  an 
essential  separation  between  soul  and  body,  Leibnitz  can- 
not conceive  of  them  apart.  He  says  distinctly,  in  the 
"  New  Essays,"  "  The  soul  is  never  separated  from  some 
kind  of  a  body ; "  and  he  writes  to  Arnauld,  "  Our  body  is 
the  matter,  and  our  own  soul  is  the  form,  of  our  substantial 
existence."  We  find  exactly  the  same  propositions  in 
several  of  his  works,  especially  in  the  "  Monadology."  The 
rational  soul  must  be  distinguished  from  the  sentient  soul. 
Animals,  in  the  condition  of  germs,  have  only  sentient 
souls ;  but,  as  soon  as  those  germs  are  elected,  and  arrive  at 
a  perfect  nature,  their  sentient  souls  are  raised  to  the  pre- 
rogative of  reason. 

The  reasoning  soul  is,  for  Leibnitz,  the  source  of  all 
highest  revelation.  The  foundation  of  things,  as  he  holds, 
is  everywhere  the  same,  and  we  must  judge  of  every  thing 
according  to  that  which  is  known  to  us,  that  is,  the  soul. 
Our  self  is,  in  fact,  the  only  substance  of  which  we  have 
direct  consciousness.  The  true  unity  we  feel  to  exist  in 
it  we  must  attribute  to  other  substances,  just  as  we  must ' 
judge  of  force,  not  as  an  object  of  the  senses  and  the 
imagination,  but  in  accordance  with  that  type  which  we 


36  NATURE   AND  LIFE. 

discover  in  the  will.  We  can  conceive  of  spiritual  sub- 
stance in  an  infinite  number  of  various  degrees,  which  may 
be  either  superior  or  inferior  to  the  self '/  we  can  conceive 
of  nothing  active  that  is  not  similar  to  it.  Since  all  our 
ideas  proceed  from  profound  reflection  on  ourselves,  we 
could  know  nothing  of  being,  if  we  did  not  find  being  in 
ourselves.  This  is  the  same  as  saying  that  the  intellect 
contains  in  itself  certain  primordial  notions,  which  are  the 
starting-point  and  the  condition  of  all  others.  In  other 
words,  it  is  declaring  that  ideas  exist  in  the  mind  anterior 
to  experience,  dependent  on  the  very  constitution  of  that 
mind.  Aristotle  and  Locke  compared  the  soul  to  a  blank 
tablet,  on  which  the  senses  and  experience  proceed  to  in- 
scribe their  teachings.  Leibnitz  maintains  that  it  origi- 
nally holds  the  principles  of  many  ideas  and  doctrines, 
which  outward  objects  merely  call  into  action  at  fitting 
times.  With  Plato,  with  St.  Paul,  when  he  declares  that 
the  law  of  God  is  written  in  our  hearts,  with  Scaliger,  who 
called  them  seeds  of  'eternity ',  the  author  of  "  Monadology  " 
admits  these  fundamental  concepts  of  the  understanding  as 
the  bases  of  all  knowledge.  He  compares  them  to  livkig 
fires,  to  luminous  rays  hidden  within  us,  which  the  contact 
of  sense  and  of  outward  objects  brings  to  view,  as  sparks 
that  leap  out  on  striking  flint  witli  steel.  And  these 
flashes  are  visible  more  than  in  any  other  thing  in  the  gift 
of  perceiving  the  connection  of  things,  that  is,  in  the  reason. 
In  what  relation  does  the  soul,  this  especially  active 
monad,  find  itself  to  be  with  those  monads  of  a  lower 
order,  the  elements  of  the  body  ?  In  Leibnitz's  view,  that 
organized  mass  by  which  the  soul  makes  itself  known,  being 
of  a  nature  very  similar  to  it,  acts  in  turn  of  its  own  accord, 
whenever  the  soul  wills  it,  without  any  clashing  between 
the  laws  of  either,  the  spirits  and  the  blood  performing  at 
such  times  exactly  the  required  motions  in  correspondence 
with  the  soul's  passions  and  perceptions.  It  is  this  mutual 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE-LEIBNITZ'S  IDEAS.          37 

relation  established  beforehand  in  every  substance  in  the 
universe  which  creates  its  general  communion,  and  creates 
particularly  the  union  between  soul  and  body.  We  may 
hence  understand  how  the  soul  has  its  seat  in  the  body 
by  near  and  direct  presence,  for  it  is  in  it  as  unity  is  in 
multitude.  The  soul,  a  thinking  monad,  acts  in  conso- 
nance with  inferior  but  still  vital  monads,  which,  concur- 
rently with  it,  are  manifested  by  the  organized  substance  in 
which  thought  has  its  seat.  The  soul  is  in  relations  with 
the  lower  activities  of  life,  as  they  are  with  the  still  duller 
activities  of  mere  matter,  in  a  companionship  which  is  not 
a  dependence. 

We  must  now  rise  higher,  and  study  the  relations  and 
the  communion  between  monads  in  the  universe.  Three 
principles,  that  of  preestablished  harmony,  that  of  con- 
tinuity, and  that  of  the  sufficient  reason,  are  here  the  basis 
of  Leibnitz's  philosophy.  Preestablished  harmony  ex- 
presses nothing  else  than  the  combination  of  all  monads  in 
the  universe.  Our  mind  perceives  an  infinity  of  relations 
among  them,  of  which  it  does  not  grasp  the  physical  ne- 
cessity. It  does  not  know  why  two  monads  act  in  concert, 
or  the  one  upon  the  other,  to  bring  about  some  special 
results.  It  cannot  explain  how  monads  of  a  lower  order 
exert  influence  over  those  of  a  higher  order,  those  of  the 
body  on  those  of  the  soul,  and  reciprocally.  In  a  word,  as 
Hume  demonstrates,  we  perceive  no  logical  and  necessary 
connection  between  phenomena  which  follow  each  other  in 
the  successive  relations  of  cause  and  effect.  Yet  we  are 
certain  that  no  single  molecule  in  the  world  is  alien  to  the 
rest,  that  not  one  is  isolated  from  the  whole,  that  all  are 
conjoint  and  act  together  in  the  whirl  of  general  existence. 
We  remark  that  every  effect  depends  on  an  infinity  of 
causes,  and  that  every  cause  has  an  infinity  of  effects.  The 
concourse,  the  common  action,  the  consensus  of  all  these 
monads  toward  a  regular  order,  manifestly  prove  an  estab- 


38  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

lished  harmony  among  their  essential  activities.  There  is 
a  perfect  concord,  in  virtue  of  which  every  substance,  fol- 
lowing its  own  laws,  agrees  with  what  all  the  others  re- 
quire. Leibnitz  believes  this  harmony  to  cover  something 
besides  mere  relations  of  causality.  He  sees  in  the  rela- 
tions of  monads  influences  of  the  same  kind  as  those  the 
soul  exerts  over  the  body ;  he  believes  that  they  have  an 
intuitive  feeling  one  for  the  other,  each  having  a  kind  of 
apperception  of  what  is  not  itself.  He  believes  that,  hav- 
ing this  reciprocal  feeling,  they  exhibit  a  kind  of  irrita- 
bility, attended  by  more  or  less  consciousness,  in  respect 
to  their  mutual  qualities.  He  even  judges  that,  while  they 
receive  the  harmonious  impression  of  the  complete  world 
in  which  they  are  factors,  they  reflect  it  in  a  certain  way, 
and  express  its  law.  Every  substance,  he  says,  is  percipi- 
ent and  representative  of  the  total  world,  according  to  its 
point  of  view  and  its  impressions.  A  Persian  poet  had 
said  before  him,  "  Cleave  an  atom,  and  you  will  find  in  it  a 
sun."  In  a  word,  monads,  though  each  possessing  in  itself 
its  peculiar  principle  of  activity  and  direction,  all  act  to- 
gether in  an  ordered  concert  of  energy.  But  what  bond 
unites  them  ?  Are  those  relations  we  observe  among  them 
only  relatioas  in  our  own  reason  ?  Do  mutual  necessary 
relations  among  them  exist  ?  How  does  unity  rule  in  the 
world  ?  This  is  the  absolutely  unknown  in  our  science,  and 
is  one  of  the  arguments  urged  by  Leibnitz  to  prove  the 
existence  of  God.  God  makes  the  bond,  the  communion, 
among  substances.  Moreover,  these  substances,  logically 
connected,  though  each  performing  its  distinct  part,  tend 
toward  one  final  end. 

The  law  of  continuity  displays  new,  closer  relations 
among  monads,  and  fixes  the  place  in  the  scale  of  their 
various  conditions.  Future  characteristics  are  traced  be- 
forehand, and  the  marks  of  the  past  are  always  preserved 
in  every  substance.  Thus  every  event  issues  from  those 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATUKE— LEIBNITZ'S  IDEAS.         39 

that  precede  it.  On  the  other  hand,  monads,  in  their  in- 
finite diversities,  succeed  each  other  without  a  break  from 
the  most  rudimentary  to  the  most  perfect  ones.  That  pro- 
gression which  we  conceive  of  in  the  abstract  quantities 
of  mathematics  exists  among  the  real  quantities  of  the 
world,  which  monads  of  every  kind  are.  Force,  life,  will, 
are  assigned  in  different  proportions  to  all  the  degrees  of 
that  immeasurable  series — in  the  lower  ones  dull  and  imper- 
ceptible, in  the  higher  ones  potent  and  fruitful.  The  pas- 
sage of  inferior  monads  to  higher  planes  takes  place  gradu- 
ally through  a  thousand  intermediate  ones.  The  principles 
of  bodies  advance  incessantly  nearer  to  perfection,  and  do 
not  differ  essentially  from  those  of  the  souls  with  which 
they  are  connected.  Souls  in  their  turn  are  numerous,  and 
they  too  obey  a  law  of  progress.  Thus  there  is  a  measure- 
less quantity  of  degrees  of  life,  some  more  or  less  dominant 
over  others,  from  the  faint  and  dull  activity  of  the  atom  of 
sand  up  to  the  sovereign  power  of  absolute  mind.  Des- 
cartes had  said  that  all  the  facts  of  Nature  follow  on  in 
connection  like  geometric  truths.  Leibnitz  shows  us  a  yet 
deeper  and  more  universal  order  in  things.  Every  thing 
is  proportioned,  analogous,  harmonious  :  all  is  held,  is  con- 
tinued, in  unbroken  interdependence.  Thus  we  no  longer 
recognize  two  distinct  worlds,  the  natural  and  the  spiritual 
one.  Spiritual  existences  compose  a  part  of  one  and  the 
same  series  with  corporeal  ones.  The  only  differences  be- 
tween them  are  differences  of  degree. 

The  principle  of  the  "  sufficient  reason  "  discloses  to  us 
the  strict  economy  of  things.  Nothing  occurs  in  Nature 
without  a  reason,  but  she  is  not  wasteful  of  her  reasons. 
She  always  chooses  the  shortest  ways.  Magnificent  in 
effects,  miserly  in  causes,  she  produces  the  greatest  amount 
of  work  with  the  least  amount  of  force.  The  reasons  of 
the  world,  Leibnitz  holds,  are  hidden  in  something  extra- 
mundane,  which  differs  from  the  interdependence  of  states, 


40  NATURE 'AND  LIFE. 

the  series  of  substances,  whose  totality  makes  up  the 
world.  We  must  rise,  therefore,  from  physical  or  hypo- 
thetical necessity,  which  determines  the  succeeding  state 
of  the  world  accordantly  with  an  anterior  state,  to  absolute 
or  metaphysical  necessity,  of  which  we  can  give  no  ac- 
count, and  this  last  reason  is  the  reason  of  all  the  others. 
As  a  thoughtful  interpreter  of  Leibnitz's  teaching  says,1 
thought,  will,  are  at  the  bottom  of  all  things  ;  phenomena, 
in  all  their  degrees,  appear  in  the  last  result  only  as  so 
many  refractions  in  the  variously-disturbed  media  of  sole 
and  universal  light — -light  which  shines  most  of  all  in  our 
own  soul,  because  it  is  the  focus  in  which  are  concentrated 
the  everywhere  dispersed  rays  of  that  diffused  effulgence. 
From  action  to  action,  from  power  to  power,  we  must  thus 
soar  to  a  potency  which  at  last  suffices  singly  for  itself — 
that  is,  to  perfect  spontaneity. 

In  time,  then,  as  in  space,  all  things  are  subject  to  a 
law  of  inflexible  interdependence.  This  idea  of  beholding 
the  universe  in  the  microcosm,  of  regarding  the  infinitely 
great  in  the  infinitely  little,  monads  in  incessant  reciprocal 
action,  each  part  bearing  the  stamp  of  the  absolute  which 
shines  forth  in  the  all,  and  this  all  moving  onward  in  grand, 
harmonious  might  toward  an  end  of  which  our  intelligence 
can  catch  perchance  but  a  dim  glimpse,  but  which  it  feels 
in  deep  conviction — this  idea  is  the  glory  of  Leibnitz.  It 
is  determinism  in  its  all-embracing  fullness.  Descartes,  too, 
had  formed  an  image  of  the  world  accordantly  with  supreme 
laws ;  but  he  had  shut  up  those  laws  within  the  limits  of 
mechanism.  Leibnitz  beholds  a  grander  sphere,  and  views, 
beyond  mechanism,  energy,  life,  love,  and  good ;  he  gazes 
upon  the  true  God  in  his  magnificence.  The  God  of  Descartes 
is  number  and  force ;  the  God  of  Leibnitz  is  life  and  beauty. 
From  his  bosom  all  wells  forth  and  radiates  in  floods  of 
eternal  light,  as  thoughts  emanate  from  our  own  existence. 

1  Ravaisson,  "  Philosophy  in  France  in  the  Nineteenth  Century." 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE— LEIBNITZ'S  IDEAS.         41 

H. 

Leibnitz  has  thus  led  us  on  to  the  loftiest  heights  of 
thought,  the  furthest  bounds  of  speculation.  Let  us  now 
come  down  again  with  him  to  the  special  questions  he  has 
explored  and  transmitted  to  modern  science,  which  still 
lacks  the  power  to  solve  them  all.  We  shall  learn  how 
serviceable  that  science  has  found  the  general  principles 
settled  by  him  as  the  grand  laws  of  the  world's  order. 
Leibnitz  has  the  clearest  and  strongest  sense  of  the  diffusi- 
bility  of  life.  He  defines  exactly  the  characteristic  which 
lies  at  its  base,  that  is,  the  incessant  molecular  replacement 
of  matter  in  the  permanence  of  active  forms,  namely,  of 
souls.  He  holds  that  the  minutest  portion  of  matter  con- 
tains a  world  of  creatures,  lives,  animated  beings,  actuali- 
ties, souls.  Every  particle  of  matter  is  to  be  conceived  of 
as  a  garden  full  of  plants,  or  a  pond  full  of  fishes ;  but  every 
twig  of  each  plant,  every  limb  of  each  animal,  every  drop 
in  its  humors,  is  again  such  a  garden,  or  such  a  pond,  full 
of  decreasingly  minute  lives,  similar  in  kind.  All  these 
bodies,  he  adds,  move  like  rivers,  in  unresting  flow*  Por- 
tions pass  into  them,  and  pass  out  of  them,  incessantly.  In 
this  way  the  soul  changes  its  bodies  by  very  fine  degrees, 
and  is  never  suddenly  stripped  of  its  organs ;  vital  proper- 
ties are  continuous,  while  the  matter  of  life  is  transitory. 
Leibnitz  conjectured,  consequently,  that  some  animals  must 
have  the  faculty  of  multiplying  by  scission,  like  plants. 
The  discovery  of  polyps  by  Trembley,  the  facts  of  the  mode 
of  increase  in  vorticelli,  paramecias,  and  bursars  and  opa- 
lines, since  noticed,  have  justified  the  philosopher's  guess. 

Descartes  regarded  animals  as  machines,  as  soulless 
automata,  made  up  of  atoms  the  movements  of  which  are 
coordinated  in  the  manner  of  those  of  plants.  He  denied 
them  intelligence,  and  supposed  that  the  sensibility  and  in- 
stinct noticed  in  them  might  be  explained  by  purely  me- 
chanical causes.  Leibnitz  does  not  admit  that  there  are 
3 


42  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

any  specific  differences  between  man  and  animals.  He 
grants  that  they  have  a  soul  inferior  to  ours  in  being  less 
rational,  but  still  a  rational  soul,  a  soul  fundamentally  of 
the  same  essence  as  ours,  a  principle  of  activity  quite  other 
than  the  energies  of  the  inorganic  world.  He  considers  it, 
moreover,  equally  indestructible  and  immortal  with  our 
own.  Those,  says  Leibnitz,  who  conceive  that  an  infinity 
of  little  living  things  exists  in  the  smallest  drop  of  water, 
as  Leuwenhoeck's  experiments  prove,  and  who  do  not  think 
it  strange  that  matter  should  be  filled  everywhere  with  ani- 
mated substances,  will  not  think  it  strange  either  that 
there  should  be  something  animated  in  ashes,  and  that  fire 
may  transform  a  living  being,  may  reduce  it,  instead  of  de- 
stroying it.  Thus,  life  does  not  vanish.  Only  the  arrange- 
ment and  agreement  of  the  monads  are  modified ;  the  es- 
sences that  compose  them  remain  with  their  original  and 
incorruptible  properties,  ready  to  reappear  in  other  living 
things.  That  which  never  begins  never  perishes  either. 
These  reflections  led  Leibnitz  to  a  very  profound  way  of 
looking  on  the  phenomenon  of  death.  As  life  is  not  a 
breath  coming  suddenly  and  all  at  once  to  animate  the 
body,  death  cannot  be  attributed  to  the  sudden  vanishing 
of  such  a  breath.  As  generation  is  only  the  developing  of 
an  already-formed  animal,  corruption,  or  death,  is  only  the 
enveloping  of  a  living  being  which  does  not  cease  to  re- 
main living.  Death  takes  place  by  degrees;  it  attacks 
first  the  imperceptible  parts,  and  does  not  strike  our  atten- 
tion until  it  has  seized  the  whole  being.  And  we  do  not 
see  the  gradual  steps  of  that  retrograding  as  we  perceive 
those  of  the  slow  forward  movement  that  constitutes  birth. 
The  facts  of  transformation  and  renewed  life  among  insects, 
the  return  to  life  of  men  nearly  frozen,  drowned,  or  stran- 
gled, seem  to  Leibnitz  a  proof  that  death  thus  comes  on 
by  very  slow  degrees,  and  he  advises  medical  science  to 
attempt  the  task  of  bringing  men  to  life  again.  Later 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE— LEIBNITZ'S  IDEAS.         43 

science  has  confirmed  these  ideas.  Life  does  dwell  in  the 
infinitely  little  ;  it  holds  its  silent  and  secret  flow  under  the 
"  manifold  disguises "  Hamlet  speaks  of,  eluding  search 
while  it  still  plays  in  every  pulse,  and  finding  its  food  in 
death. 

Leibnitz  also  turns  his  attention  to  species,  which  he 
defines  by  generation  in  such  sort  that  the  being  similar  to 
another  which  comes  from  the  same  origin,  or  the  same 
seed,  is  also  of  the  same  species.  The  various  classes  of 
beings  appear  to  him  only  as  ordinates  of  the  same  curve, 
and  form  but  one  chain,  in  which  these  classes,  like  so 
many  links,  hold  so  closely  to  each  other  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  fix  the  point  at  which  any  one  of  them  begins  or 
ends.  All  species,  he  says  with  remarkable  exactness, 
which  border  upon  or  occupy  parts  of  the  curve  where  it 
is  bent  or  returned  on  itself,  must  be  endowed  with  equivo- 
cal characteristics.  Then,  looking  at  the  subject  as  a  whole, 
and  bringing  it  under  the  law  of  continuity,  he  arranges 
species,  and  beings  generally,  in  an  immense  series,  from 
man  to  the  simplest  existences  ;  he  holds  that  there  is  so 
close  an  approach  between  animals  and  vegetables  that, 
taking  the  least  perfect  of  the  former  and  the  most  perfect 
of  the  latter,  they  can  hardly  be  distinguished.  It  accords, 
too,  with  the  superb  harmony  of  the  universe,  with  the 
grand  plan  as  well  as  with  the  goodness  of  its  Sovereign 
Architect,  that  the  various  kinds  of  creatures  should  rise  by 
degrees  toward  his  infinite  perfection.  Leibnitz  admits  the 
existence  of  creatures  more  perfect  than  ourselves,  but  of 
whom  he  confesses  that  we  can  have  no  clear  conception. 
He  also  believes  that  in  the  series  of  existing  things  there 
are  voids,  possible  things  non-existent.  The  variation  of  spe- 
cies, several  instances  of  which  he  examines,  seems  to  him 
to  be  real,  but  not  their  transmutation ;  he  is  for  limited 
variableness,  that  is,  he  allows  the  action  of  modifying  cir- 
cumstances within  a  wide  range,  yet  does  not  go  so  far  as 


44  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

to  believe  that  they  can  transform  the  species.  On  exam- 
ining the  impressions  of  fishes  and  plants  in  the  schists  of 
Halle,  Leibnitz,  for  the  first  time,  perceived  in  those  re- 
mains, not  a  sport  of  Nature,  but  testimonies  to  revolutions 
on  the  globe,  and  to  the  existence  of  faunas  and  floras  that 
have  perished.  The  "  Protogaea,"  in  which  this  important 
question  is  particularly  and  deeply  studied,  fixes  the  start- 
ing-point for  modern  geology  and  paleontology,  and  for  all 
explanations,  on  the  Plutonic  theory,  of  the  earth's  crust. 
Hutton,  Buffon,  and  Cuvier,  drew  inspiration  for  their  la- 
bors from  this  sketch  of  Leibnitz. 

He  argues  that,  if  it  often  happens  in  science  that  we 
fail  in  the  power  of  distinctly  marking  differences,  that 
results  from  our  ignorance  of  both  the  minute  parts  and 
the  inward  structure  of  things,  that  is,  the  principles  by 
which  their  fundamental  nature  might  be  accounted  for. 
That  want  of  knowledge  obliges  us  to  pronounce  by  guess 
on  many  phenomena,  the  full  understanding  of  which  is 
reserved  for  the  future.  Therefore  he  builds  great  hopes 
upon  the  use  of  the  microscope,  and  upon  comparative 
anatomy  (the  term  is  his  own),  in  which  he  believes  that 
the  confirmation  of  many  of  his  ideas  will  be  found. 
Among  other  conjectures  he  distinctly  foresees  the  func- 
tion and  importance  of  the  spermatozoa,  in  making  the 
assertion  that  it  will  be  discovered  how  each  sex  supplies 
some  organized  thing  in  the  phenomena  of  generation. 
And  this  assertion  has  a  very  just  effect  in  correcting  his 
theory  of  the  syngenetic  preformation  of  beings,  or  the 
incasement  of  germs,  according  to  which  all  ova  exist  be- 
forehand from  the  origin  of  the  world,  inclosed  in  that  of 
the  first  representative  of  each  species.  That  theory, 
proved  to  be  erroneous  by  the  whole  result  of  observation 
in  embryogeny,  is  thus  erroneous,  precisely  because  the  or- 
ganized element  contributed  by  the  male  sex  is  indispen- 
sable to  the  growth  of  the  embryo. 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE— LEIBNITZ'S  IDEAS.         45 

The  classification  of  genera  and  species  in  the  vegetable 
kingdom  is  a  difficult  task.  Botanists  in  the  seventeenth 
century  thought  that  distinctions,  founded  on  the  shapes 
of  the  flower,  made  the  nearest  approach  to  the  natural 
order  in  arranging  a  series  of  classes.  Leibnitz  judges 
that  it  would  be  best  to  make  the  comparison  not  only  in 
respect  to  a  single  characteristic,  such  as  that  of  the  flower, 
which  may  after  all  be  the  most  useful  in  arranging  a  con- 
venient system,  but  also  in  respect  to  the  characteristics 
of  other  parts  in  plants.  He  thus  suggests  the  rule  of 
subordination  in  characteristics,  as  a  result  of  his  ideas 
upon  the  harmony  of  beings. 

Thus  all  these  labors  and  hypotheses  issue  directly  from 
Leibnitz's  metaphysical  conceptions  as  to  the  system  of 
mundane  elements.  A  still  more  direct  outcome  from  them 
is  the  invention  of  the  infinitesimal  calculus.  Were  the 
calculus  of  itself  nothing  more  than  a  splendid  curiosity, 
even  then  it  would  be  much  to  have  discovered  a  means 
of  working  upon  and  with  infinite  quantities  as  with  finite 
ones.  Fortunately  that  method  of  calculation  has  found 
occasion  in  astronomy,  mechanics,  and  physics,  for  applica- 
tions so  rich  in  results  that  those  sciences  have  gained  a 
new  being  from  it.  It  is  a  new  instrument,  a  new  lever 
supplied  to  them  for  the  highest  researches.  We  thus 
learn  the  extent  of  Leibnitz's  familiarity  with  the  most 
difficult  problems. 

m. 

What  has  been  the  influence  of  the  metaphysics  of 
Leibnitz  over  the  great  processes  of  advance  in  modern 
science,  beginning  with  those  of  the  last  century  ?  It  is 
an  old  saying  that  the  eighteenth  century  had  no  original 
philosophy;  in  fact,  it  lived  on  borrowed  doctrines.  It 
had  among  others  one  system  of  teaching  proceeding  from 
that  of  Leibnitz,  and  Diderot  may  be  said  to  have  been  its 


46  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

true  representative.  At  the  first  glance,  that  abounding 
and  undisciplined  mind  seems  devoid  of  the  qualities  of 
dogmatism  and  method  which  properly  make  the  philoso- 
pher ;  but  on  a  closer  study  we  become  aware  that  he  did 
develop  an  exact  and  settled  system,  in  which  the  ideas 
of  Leibnitz  hold  a  large  place,  and  the  principle  of  dyna- 
mism, the  notion  of  mother-forces,  governs.  In  the  "  In- 
terpretation of  Nature,"  in  "  D'Alembert's  Dream,"  and  in 
"  Philosophical  Truths  as  to  Matter  and  Motion,"  Diderot 
shows  himself  a  pure  scholar  of  the  Hanoverian  thinker, 
rather  a  fanatical  one  even,  since  he  goes  so  far  as  to  write 
that  Leibnitz  by  himself  alone  gives  as  great  a  fame  to 
Germany  as  Plato,  Aristotle,  and  Archimedes  together 
confer  on  Greece.  Diderot's  dynamism,  by  which  we  mean 
his  strong,  full  conviction  of  the  activities  of  substance, 
exists  also  in  the  minds  of  Charles  Bonnet,  of  Buffon,  of 
Bordeu,  and  other  famous  naturalists  of  the  same  era.  He 
inspired  at  that  period  a  whole  school  of  investigators  and 
philosophers,  some  of  whom  found  an  excess  of  negations 
in  Hume's  doctrine,  and  others  an  excess  of  analysis  in 
Condillac's  system. 

Buffon,  like  Leibnitz,  sees  in  Nature  arranged  plans, 
continuous  relations,  regulated  facts,  ends  everywhere  fore- 
seen, conforming  to  an  order  dictated  by  supreme  control. 
Those  organic  'molecules  and  those  penetrant  forces  (im- 
manent) which  in  his  view  compose  life,  and  go  on  from 
one  mould  into  another,  to  perpetuate  it,  are  precisely 
Leibnitz's  monads.  The  great  ideas  unfolded  in  the 
"  Epochs  of  Nature,"  which,  however  disputable  in  some 
points,  have  had  so  real  an  influence  over  the  later  advances 
of  geology,  are  for  the  most  part  borrowed  from  the  "  Pro- 
toggea."  Buffon's  general  physiology  is  not  less  similar  to 
that  first  pronounced  by  Leibnitz.  Such  is  the  fact  also 
as  to  those  of  two  of  his  famous  contemporaries.  Bordeu 
and  Barthez,  protesting  at  once  against  Cartesian  geome- 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE— LEIBNITZ'S  IDEAS.         47 

trism,  erroneously  extended  to  comprise  the  phenomena  of 
life,  and  against  analysis  pushed  to  extremes,  as  preached 
by  Condillac  and  applied  by  his  school,  demonstrate  and 
maintain  vital  forces  in  all  their  splendid  independence  of 
action  and  simplicity  that  cannot  be  further  simplified.  No 
doubt  they  exaggerate  the  weakness  of  mechanical  ex- 
planations, and  the  perils  of  analysis,  and  it  would  be  an 
error  to  suppose  that  later  science  has  always  pronounced 
them  right.  But  it  has  at  least  justified  them  in  holding 
the  opinion  advanced  by  Leibnitz  in  opposition  to  Des- 
cartes, namely,  that  life  -is  a  higher  force  which  involves 
lower  ones  without  dependence  on  them,  that  the  organ- 
ism is  a  system  of  energies  in  which  not  every  thing  takes 
place  mechanically,  that  the  forces  which  act  in  animals 
are  essentially  analogous  to  those  which  act  in  man,  and 
that  they  all,  consubstantial  with  organized  matter,  can 
come  to  act  only  in  it  and  by  it.  It  is  thus  that  those  two 
great  physicians  at  the  same  time  destroyed  the  medico- 
mechanics  of  Boerhaave  and  the  animism  of  Stahl,  and 
made  the  way  ready  for  Bichat.  Neither  does  the  same 
recent  science  wholly  confirm  the  conjectures  risked  by 
Charles  Bonnet,  by  Telliamed,  and  more  lately  by  Delame1- 
therie,  Lamarck,  and  Darwin,  upon  the  connection  of  be- 
ings, the  origin  and  transformation  of  species,  conjectures 
of  which  Leibnitz  had  furnished  the  cautious  outline ;  yet 
it  would  be  unjust  not  to  acknowledge  that  they  have 
aided  in  giving  a  strong  impulse  to  zoological  researches. 

So  also  Vicq-d'Azyr,  and  those  other  anatomists  who 
lay  the  foundation  of  comparative  anatomy,  and  examine 
the  harmonious  relations,  the  various  connections,  the  dy- 
namic adjustments  of  the  organs,  are  faithful  to  the  con- 
ceptions formed  by  Leibnitz  as  to  Nature's  plans.  Goethe, 
who  openly  expressed  his  respect  for  Diderot,  shows  him- 
self a  follower  of  Leibnitz  as  well  as  of  Spinoza,  not  only 
in  his  works  on  comparative  anatomy,  in  which  he  points 


48  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

out  the  latent  symmetry  of  living  parts  and  examines  fine 
proportions  in  bodies,  but  also  in  his  general  doctrines  as 
to  the  world.  He  admits  that  all  Nature  is  filled  with 
forces,  lives,  and  souls,  a  feeling  most  eloquently  uttered 
in  "  Faust,"  in  "  Werther,"  in  the  "  Poesies ;  "  and,  still 
more,  he  expressly  approves  of  the  "  Monadology."  In  his 
magnificent  funeral  discourse  upon  Wieland  (1812),  he 
unfolds,  in  language  that  Leibnitz  would  not  have  refused 
to  adopt,  all  the  details  of  that  belief  he  resorts  to  in  ex- 
plaining the  immortality  of  thought,  that  is,  of  conscious 
monads.  All  that  school  distinctly  supplies  us  with  proof 
of  the  influence  philosophic  teachings  exert  over  the  mind 
of  savants,  and  consequently  over  the  advance  of  discov- 
eries. We  thus  discern  of  what  advantage  it  always  is  to 
guide  researches  and  experiments  by  the  loftier  hints  of 
speculative  genius,  and  we  perceive,  too,  the  need  there  is 
for  the  consideration  by  philosophers  of  objective  reason- 
ings. 

Our  age  has  been  too  long  neglectful  of  these  impor- 
tant lessons.  We  have  seen  its  philosophy  take  leave  of 
science,  to  ally  itself  with  literature  and  morals.  While 
science  and  philosophy,  continuing  closely  united,  were 
destined,  by  the  natural  progress  of  things,  to  gain  more 
intimate  mutual  intelligence,  their  divorce  has  retarded  the 
moment  of  a  reconcilement  and  good  understanding,  so 
highly  desirable.  No  doubt,  very  well-written  books,  full 
of  excellent  thoughts,  were  still  published  among  philo- 
sophic schools;  no  doubt,  grand  discoveries  were  still 
brought  to  light  in  the  schools  of  science ;  but  doctrines 
had  vanished,  and  with  them  labored  and  fruitful  meditation 
had  ceased  to  exist.  Science,  departing  from  high  thought, 
lost  its  dignity  and  contracted  an  empirical  character. 
Philosophy,  by  dint  of  ignoring  experimental  facts,  lost  it- 
self in  the  chimerical.  The  Cartesian  spirit,  even  more 
perhaps  than  the  spirit  of  Descartes,  rose  predominant,  and 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE— LEIBNITZ'S   IDEAS.         49 

urged  metaphysicians  to  empty  spiritualism,  and  physicists 
to  sophistical  materialism.  While  knowledge  of  mind  was 
thus  wasting  itself  in  literary  declamation,  and  knowledge 
of  Nature  in  desultory  research,  idle  discussions  multiplied, 
of tener  inspired  by  passion  than  by  reason,  giving  weapons 
to  the  least  noble  purposes  that  passion  suggests,  and 
paralyzing  the  most  praiseworthy  undertakings  of  reason. 
At  the  present  time  this  state  of  things  is  disappearing, 
and  Leibnitz's  philosophy,  it  seems,  must  be  the  strongest 
ally  of  all  who  long  for  a  fruitful  union  between  science 
and  metaphysics.  The  highest  minds  in  schools  most 
widely  apart  give  us  grounds  for  indulging  that  hope. 
They  do  not  rest  satisfied  with  wishing  for  its  fulfillment ; 
they  are  laboring  for  that  direct  purpose,  disregarding  all 
impediments  of  prejudices  or  of  objections. 

The  result  most  clearly  ascertained  by  vivisections  in 
experimental  physiology,  and  by  observations  in  microsco- 
pic anatomy,  mainly  through  the  labors  of  Claude  Bernard 
and  Charles  Robin,  is,  that  living  beings  are  agglomera- 
tions of  infinitely  fine  and  delicate  particles,  real  individu- 
alities, each  endowed  with  characteristic  and  consubstantial 
properties.  These  active  units,  forms  and  forces  in  one, 
bring  about,  following  upon  manifold  interminglings,  the 
whole  organization  and  the  whole  working  of  animal  and 
vegetable  parts.  Animals  and  plants  have  ceased  to  be 
machines  vivified  by  a  power  distinct  from  them,  which 
possesses  and  moves  them ;  they  are  systems  of  combined 
monads  in  which  life  is  deeply  lodged,  and  by  which  it  ex- 
presses itself — they  are  marvelously  ordered  collections  of 
minute  springs,  possessing  certain  innate  tendencies.  As 
Leibnitz  had  said,  every  living  being  is  made  up  of  an  in- 
finity of  living  beings.  Now,  these  corpuscles,  known  to 
modern  science  as  anatomical  elements,  have  as  their  es- 
sential principle  what  Leibnitz  described  by  the  term 
"  souls,"  forms  of  substance,  essential  powers,  monads.  In 


50  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

fact,  that  which  gives  their  character  to  these  primordial 
elements  of  life  is  dynamic  actuality.  Let  us  consider  a 
dead  cell  and  a  living  cell.  What  makes  the  difference  be- 
tween them  ?  Nothing  at  all,  either  from  the  geometrical 
point  of  view,  or  from  the  physical  or  chemical  one ;  noth- 
ing which  may  be  detected  by  measurement,  or  balances, 
or  reagents.  The  difference  between  them  is,  that  the  for- 
mer is  devoid  of  the  activity  which  exists  in  the  latter. 
That  activity  is  a  continuous  inmost  transmutation,  by 
which  the  matter  of  the  cell  is  incessantly  renewed,  with- 
out any  modification  of  its  morphological  appearances  or 
of  its  other  properties.  Life  consists  in  this  tide  which 
flows  deep  through  every  element  in  the  organization,  in 
that  virtue  of  instability  which  effects  unceasing  change 
in  the  matter  of  appearances,  while  the  form  and  the  force 
do  not  vary.  It  exists  in  those  organic  properties,  pure 
forces,  which  are  constant,  while  the  organs,  the  visible 
forms,  are  passing.  Therefore,  in  opposition  to  the  belief 
of  materialism,  and  in  accordance  with  Leibnitz's  views, 
matter,  in  such  case,  is  merely  the  shifting  envelope ;  the 
unchangeable  base  is  force.  In  addition  to  nutrition,  which 
has  just  been  defined,  other  manifestations  of  life  are, 
through  organization,  development,  contractility,  feeling, 
thought,  will.  These  other  aspects  yield  us  the  same  dem- 
onstration. The  utter  impossibility  of  producing  any 
thing  organized  with  mere  inorganic  forces,  the  impotence 
of  spontaneous  generation  in  the  first  place,  testifies  that 
organization  possesses  a  higher  principle  than  that  of  the 
phenomena  of  the  mineral  kingdom :  but  organization  is 
not  the  only  thing  that  it  is  forbidden  to  attribute  to  the 
working  of  physico-chemical  means ;  the  same  holds  true 
of  contractility,  sensibility,  and  a  fortiori  of  thought  and 
will.  The  greater  the  development  of  experimental  science, 
the  more  decided  is  the  difference  between  these  two  or- 
ders of  phenomena,  which  theory  held  might  be  con- 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE— LEIBNITZ'S  IDEAS.         51 

founded,  the  organic  and  the  inorganic  order,  namely,  and 
the  more  evident  it  becomes  that  the  forces  of  life  and 
those  of  a  stone  cannot  be  identified,  even  in  their  princi- 
ple. The  monads  that  engender  cells  are  higher  than  those 
that  slumber  in  the  grain  of  sand,  just  as  the  coarsest  por- 
tion of  an  animal  is  otherwise  and  more  intricately  com- 
plex than  the  most  perfect  crystal.  Very  clearly,  if  form, 
personality,  thought,  memory,  will,  all  that  makes  up  the 
life  of  self,  and  the  self  of  life,  persists  in  identity,  while 
the  matter  of  the  organs  suffers  change  and  renewal,  it 
must  be  because  life  consists  in  a  system  of  activity  essen- 
tially different  from  geometrical  extension  and  from  mass 
that  has  weight ;  it  is  because  it  is  the  peculiar  property  of 
a  substance  which  involves  physico-chemical  action  indeed, 
but  involves  besides  that  something  quite  different. 

Every  monad,  says  Leibnitz,  has  its  principle,  its  essence, 
its  law,  and  is  not  made  subject  to  the  will  of  external  im- 
pulses. This  is  the  very  basis  of  the  doctrines  as  to  life 
enounced  by  Charles  Robin.  Instead  of  granting  that  the 
body  is  ruled  by  a  vital  principle  which  coordinates  and 
guides  physiological  motions,  he  believes  that,  thanks  to  a 
complete  concord  in  virtue  of  which  every  substance,  obey- 
ing its  own  laws,  assents  to  what  other  substances  require, 
the  effective  working  of  the  latter  follows  or  attends  the 
effective  working  of  the  former.  The  development  of  liv- 
ing beings,  which  consists  in  a  progressive  and  ordered  ac- 
cumulation of  anatomical  elements,  is  explained,  as  he  avers, 
not  by  one  force  which  holds  them  under  its  guidance,  but 
by  the  successive  coming  into  view,  in  some  sort  the  revela- 
tion, of  elementary  substances  which  express  life,  every  one 
of  those  substances  duly  appearing  when  the  conditions 
needed  for  its  manifest  existence  concur. 

But  is  life  everywhere  in  the  world,  as  Leibnitz  insists  ? 
Undoubtedly,  if  by  life  is  to  be  understood  spontaneity  of 
all  things,  activity  peculiar  to  each  monad.  Or  again,  when 


52  NATURE  ALD  LIFE. 

we  reflect  that  every  portion  whatever  of  substance  vir- 
tually contains  some  aspiration  toward  life,  since  it  is  ready 
to  enter  as  a  component  part  into  the  constitution  of  a  liv- 
ing being,  we  may  surely  say  that  every  thing  lives.  But 
if  by  that  word  we  mean  to  express  special  energies,  of 
the  nature  of  nutrition,  sensibility,  and  will,  then  we  must 
acknowledge  that  life  belongs  only  to  organized  substances, 
that  is,  to  a  single  category  of  monads.  There  no  doubt 
is  in  the  lowest  monads,  and  those  furthest  removed  from 
life,  some  dim  tendency  toward  a  determined  order ;  but  it 
seems  to  me  erroneous,  as  yet,  to  view  in  this  a  conscious 
purpose.  It  is  rather  by  a  sort  of  reflex  action  that  such 
monads  exert  their  powers,  under  the  influence  of  superior 
monads,  exactly  as  the  elements  of  the  nerves,  for  instance, 
sometimes  act  on  those  of  the  muscles  unwittingly  to  us, 
and  in  spite  of  us. 

Another  question,  and  one  not  less  grave,  here  arises. 
The  thinking  soul,  as  Leibnitz  holds,  is  a  dominant  monad, 
a  solitary  monad.  Science  seems  not  to  authorize  such  an 
assertion.  For  science,  in  its  highest  interpretation,  the 
soul  is  a  concurrent  power  of  monads,  all  of  them  sentient 
and  intelligent,  but  in  different  degrees,  which  accounts  for 
the  variations  in  degrees  of  feeling  and  of  reason.  In  one 
living  being  there  exists  no  monad  expressing  self,  in  an- 
other self  is  only  very  vaguely  perceived,  in  another  again 
it  is  conceived  in  its  fullness.  In  one  and  the  same  living 
being  the  soul  is  evidently  manifold,  because  it  shows  it- 
self under  distinct  aspects,  as  affection,  feeling,  intellect, 
will.  Thus,  far  from  being  single  and  indivisible,  it  con- 
sists of  a  combination  of  monads  which  are  not  all  equally 
perfect,  some  being  found  occurring  in  the  lowest  animals, 
others  being  characteristic  of  man  exclusively.  An  intri- 
cate system  of  primordial  forces,  a  concordant  action  of 
energies  without  extension,  expressing  themselves  in  the 
anatomical  elements  of  the  gray  matter  of  the  brain,  and 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE— LEIBNITZ'S  IDEAS.         53 

radiating  thence  by  its  peculiar  virtue  into  the  infinity  of 
things,  the  human  soul  is  like  Milton's  lion,  half  lion  and 
half  mud,  and  still  struggling,  under  the  moulding  hand  of 
the  divine  sculptor,  to  get  free  from  chaos.  Half  spirit, 
half  matter,  our  soul  aspires  to  absolute  purity:  it  is 
checked  and  fettered  by  the  bonds  of  the  body.  The  great 
mystery  is  to  know  how  it  releases  itself  from  them  when 
passing  into  eternity. 

Leibnitz  did  not  merely  distinguish  those  virtues  which 
he  called  substantial  forms,  or  souls,  and  which  are  the 
properties  of  corpuscles  endowed  with  life,  such  as  we  now 
know  them ;  he  drew  a  further  distinction,  in  these  corpus- 
cles and  in  all  bodies  generally,  between  mass  and  matter. 
Now  what  he  termed  mass  is  the  grouping  of  our  geo- 
metric and  mechanical  properties,  and  matter  is  the  asso- 
ciation of  our  physico-chemical  properties.  Mass  and  matter 
belong  to  all  bodies,  soul  does  not  belong  to  all.  Yet  it  is 
perhaps  allowable  to  regard  as  a  quasi-vital  thing  that 
tendency  of  inorganic  molecules  to  form  regular  groups  in 
crystallization,  and  even  that  more  general  property  they 
possess  of  always  combining  in  definite  proportions,  assum- 
ing figures  of  the  generating  law  of  which  chemistry  is 
beginning  to  gain  a  glimpse.  At  all  events,  whatever  may 
be  the  principles  of  those  inward  motions,  of  those  har- 
monious struggles  that  have  their  seat  in  the  inmost  depths 
of  substance,  chemistry  in  our  days  is  a  copy  of  Leibnitz's 
thought  in  all  its  parts.  In  fact,  it  reduces  those  compli- 
cated phenomena  that  are  the  object  of  its  study  to  simple 
elements  known  under  the  name  of  atoms,  and  having 
nothing  but  the  name  in  common  with  those  of  Leucippus 
and  of  Descartes.  Pure  idealities,  and  yet  the  principles 
of  all  that  is  real,  these  atoms  are  distinguished  and  classi- 
fied by  functions  that  are  absolutely  dynamic.  Chemistry 
proves  the  action  in  those  atoms  of  primitive  forces,  which 
it  designates  by  the  term  atomicities,  and  which  it  measures 


54  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

not  by  weight  or  motion,  but  by  the  direct  product  of  the 
actual  play  of  those  forces.  "The  energy  with  which  one 
body  combines  with  another  body,"  says  Wtirtz,  "  is  inde- 
pendent of  the  power  it  possesses  to  attract  the  latter. 
The  first  is  atomicity,  the  last  is  affinity."  Atomicities  are 
capacities  of  action,  powers  of  combination,  immanent  in 
atoms,  or  rather  consubstantial  with  them.  Such  is  the 
language  at  this  day  of  the  most  authoritative  chemists. 
They  contemplate  in  bodies  elective  virtues,  tendencies  to 
saturation,  appetencies  which  imply  something  prior  and 
subsequent  to  motion,  something  like  that  which  in  us 
brings  about  action.  Chemistry  no  longer  dwells  in  ap- 
pearances and  sensible  forms,  in  those  brilliant  shows 
which  delight  or  dazzle  the  senses ;  it  dwells  in  those  mute 
forces,  in  those  acting  monads,  the  substances  of  substance, 
the  matters  of  matter.  Bodies  are  no  longer  characterized 
by  their  outward  and  momentary  physiognomy  alone ; 
they  are  also  characterized  by  that  which  is  most  secret 
within  them,  by  the  principle  of  their  past  and  coming  ex- 
istence, by  a  spring  which  is  as  inwardly  theirs  as  our  soul 
is  ours.  That  in  them  which  strikes  our  senses  is  merely 
the  veil  of  their  real  nature.  Faraday  and  Dumas  alike, 
Berthelot  and  Wtirtz  too,  here  find  the  whole  in  a  dynamic 
harmony.  A  distinguished  English  chemist,  lately  deceased, 
Graham,  the  discoverer  of  dialysis,  even  went  so  far  as  to 
conceive,  under  the  name  of  ultimates,  of  certain  principles 
yet  simpler  than  atoms,  real  points  of  substance,  the  essence 
of  which  is  determined  by  the  kind  of  vibrations  they  are 
subjected  to,  and  in  its  turn  determines  the  various  natures 
of  bodies.  Thus  monads  have  become,  in  vital  phenomena, 
anatomical  elements  with  their  consubstantial  attributes, 
and,  in  chemic  phenomena,  atoms  with  their  consubstantial 
attributes.  Greek  atomism  and  Cartesian  atomism  formed 
the  conception  of  geometric  and  mechanical  corpuscles; 
Leibnitz  formed  the  conception  of  the  principles  of  appar- 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE— LEIBNITZ'S  IDEAS.         55 

ent   activities,  explainable   neither  by   geometry  nor   by 
mechanics. 

Let  us  last  question  the  physical  science  of  our  own 
day,  and  we  shall  discover  in  it  still  the  same  ideas.  It  re- 
duces every  thing  to  vibrations,  both  those  of  what  it  terms 
material  atoms,  and  those  of  what  it  calls  ether.  In  its 
view,  physical  phenomena  are  explained  by  the  system  of 
motions  of  atoms  and  of  the  ether,  and,  since  these  motions 
may  be  transmuted  into  one  another  according  to  a  mathe- 
matical law,  it  follows  that  relations  of  equivalence  exist 
among  the  various  manifestations  of  physical  activity — 
that  there  is  such  a  thing,  for  instance,  as  a  mechanical 
equivalent  of  heat,  a  calorific  equivalent  of  electricity,  etc. 
Now,  that  internal  motion  revealed  by  analysis  and  induc- 
tion, that  corpuscular  agitation  which  gives  bodies  the  qual- 
ities without  which  they  could  not  be  perceived,  namely, 
weight,  color,  heat,  etc. — that  motion,  under  every  form, 
implies  a  moving  principle,  something  simple  and  irredu- 
cible, a  spontaneity  similar  to  that  Leibnitz  conceives  of  in 
monads.  What  is  that  living  force,  that  potential  energy, 
that  virtual  energy,  which  physicists  so  often  employ  in 
their  speculations,  if  it  is  not  the  same  thing  as  metaphys- 
ical actualities,  the  intelligible  cause  of  acts  of  force,  of 
tendencies  like  those  the  soul  feels  within  itself?  Will  it 
be  said  that  all  these  manifold  and  varying  aspects  of  phys- 
ical force  are  derivative  from  the  sheer  mechanical  force, 
whose  sum  in  the  universe  is  unchanging  ?  But,  then,  why 
does  motion  become  at  one  place  heat,  at  another  light, 
and  still  at  another  electricity  ?  Must  it  not  be  because, 
besides  those  monads  that  are  the  spring  of  motion,  others 
exist,  whose  special  function,  from  the  point  of  view  of  our 
sensibility,  is  to  act  on  different  perceptive  capacities  from 
those  by  which  we  cognize  motiofi  ? 

Under  another  aspect  we  recognize  in  our  sciences  of 
to-day  some  of  the  great  thoughts  of  Leibnitz,  thanks  to 


56  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

which  those  sciences  have  gained  a  wholly  new  character : 
we  allude  to  those  logical  formulas  into  which  the  mind 
condenses  the  materials  of  knowledge,  those  synthetic  ideas 
which  are  the  summary  of  grand  inductions.  After  having 
shown  how  we  must  conceive  of  mind  in  Nature,  we  should 
point  out  how  it  is  necessary  to  conceive  Nature  in  mind, 
for  our  sensations,  in  undergoing  elaboration  by  the  mind 
in  order  to  become  knowledge,  borrow,  and  borrow  very 
much,  from  the  peculiarities  of  the  spiritual  essence.  In- 
tellectual processes,  says  Charles  Robin,  form  a  whole  with 
the  rest  of  science,  in  such  a  way  that  history  proves  the 
exposition  of  a  general  idea  to  be  proper,  and  to  be  ad- 
missible as  equivalent  or  superior  to  the  exposition  of 
facts. 

What,  then,  are  these  intellectual  processes,  these  gen- 
eral ideas  ?  These  processes  may  be  briefly  stated  as  dia- 
lectics, either  synthetic  or  intuitive,  and  these  ideas  as  the 
concepts  about  form  and  force,  of  which  we  proceed  to 
point  out  the  chief  ones.  The  idea  of  series  is  perhaps  the 
most  important.  In  contemplating  mineral  or  chemical 
species,  or  in  contemplating  animal  or  vegetable  species, 
the  mind  arranges  them  in  a  series.  That  is  the  form  un- 
der which  it  conceives  the  totality  of  beings.  It  sets  up  a 
continuity  among  them,  resembling  that  of  series  in  the 
higher  algebra.  It  ranges  forces  and  qualities  in  an  un- 
broken graduated  progression,  the  effective  cause  of  which 
is  perfection,  in  this  sense,  that  beings  rise  to  a  higher 
point  in  the  scale  just  in  the  degree  of  their  approach  to 
the  conditions  of  that  which  is  perfect,  to  wit,  intelligence. 
So  luminous  is  this  order,  that  Gerhardt  effected  a  magnifi- 
cent renovation  in  recent  chemistry  by  bringing  into  it 
the  idea  of  series.  The  real  relations  and  the  true  charac- 
teristics of  bodies  have  been  settled  with  new  exactness 
by  that  method.  This  conception  stamps  itself  so  forcibly 
on  the  savantfs  mind  that  he  feels  a  tendency,  as  spontane- 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE-LEIBNITZ'S  IDEAS.          57 

cms  as  it  is  irresistible,  to  fill  up  the  voids  that  he  observes 
in  the  series,  and  to  imagine  rationally  possible  species  in 
order  to  do  it.  In  this  way  he  sees  beforehand  the  exist- 
ence of  some  being  unknown  in  reality,  just  as  he  foresees, 
in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  celestial  mechanism,  the  ex- 
istence of  a  planet  never  yet  observed.  This  doctrine, 
which  Leibnitz  had  deduced  from  the  principle  of  continu- 
ity, and  from  that  of  the  "  sufficient  reason,"  has  been  un- 
deniably rich  in  results  for  the  sciences.  We  name  a  late 
instance,  taken  from  chemistry.  "  The  synthesis  of  neutral 
fats,"  says  Berthelot,  "  not  only  enables  us  to  make  artificial- 
ly the  fifteen  or  twenty  natural  fatty  substances  heretofore 
known,  but  allows  us  also  to  foresee  the  formation  of  some 
-hundreds  of  millions  of  similar  fatty  bodies.  .  .  .  Every 
substance,  every  phenomenon,  represents,  we  may  say,  one 
link  involved  in  a  more  extended  chain  of  similar  and  cor- 
related substances  and  phenomena.  .  .  .  Without  quitting 
the  range  of  reasonable  expectation,  we  may  assume  to 
conceive  the  general  types  of  all  possible  substances,  and  to 
produce  them." * 

Another  general  idea  is  precisely  that  of  type.  We 
cannot  define  type  better  than  by  using  the  old  expression, 
"  creature  of  reason."  In  truth,  it  is  a  grouping  together 
of  elements  which  maintain  themselves  in  an  harmonious 
arrangement  in  such  wise  as  to  form  a  whole,  conceived  by 
the  reason  as  perfect.  Such  ideal  and  rational  creation, 
answering  to  certain  conditions  of  fixity,  necessity,  and 
generality,  becomes  a  pattern,  a  standard  to  which  the 
mind  refers  and  compares  existing  beings  outside  of  itself. 
The  mind  thus  has  the  power  of  using  reality  to  abstract 
from  it  certain  conditions  which  it  groups  in  a  higher, 
clearer,  in  brief,  in  a  truer,  order  than  that  manifested  in 
the  outward  world.  We  may  add  that  the  creation  of 
types  is  an  imperative  need  for  the  mind ;  it  shows  it  in 

1  "  Organic  Chemistry,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  800,  ct  seq. 


58  NATUKE  AND   LIFE. 

the  sciences  as  well  as  in  literature  and  the  fine  arts.  It 
grasps  reality  only  by  referring  it  to  such  ideas,  that  is  to 
say,  to  wholes  in  which  the  mutual  relation  of  the  parts  is 
perfect.  In  chemistry,  as  in  zoology  and  in  botany,  the 
type  is  the  fundamental  idea  from  the  point  of  view  of 
classifying.  The  great  discoveries  of  our  day,  especially 
the  late  discoveries  in  organic  chemistry,  bring  this  strong- 
ly into  view.  They  all  issue  from  some  speculative  theory 
as  to  the  peculiarly  rational  structure  of  things.  The  true 
philosophy  of  mind  consists,  perhaps,  in  the  study  of  these 
fundamental  conceptions  of  the  understanding,  as  the  true 
philosophy  of  Nature  lies  in  the  study  of  the  primordial 
forces  showing  forth  by  the  sensible  phenomena  of  the 
world  external  to  us.  Thus,  by  a  new  path,  we  reach  the 
confirmation  of  Leibnitz's  ideas ;  for  these  general  concepts, 
these  logical  expressions,  these  universals,  on  the  one  hand, 
furnish  proof  of  those  innate  aptitudes  in  the  mind  upon 
which  Leibnitz  endeavored  to  construct  mental  philoso- 
phy ;  and,  on  the  other,  they  imply  in  Nature  a  tendency 
toward  development,  toward  metamorphosis  and  perfec- 
tion, in  other  words,  an  intelligent  force. 

A  brilliant  school  of  mathematicians  and  physicists 
has  lately  pronounced  against  the  doctrines  the  progress  of 
which  in  the  natural  sciences  we  have  just  traced.  Its  dis- 
ciples profess  an  exaggerated  Cartesianism,  denying  any 
real  existence  to  inner  forces,  to  spontaneities,  to  actuali- 
ties, to  monads.  It  is  an  avowed  return  to  geometrism, 
with  all  its  strictnesses,  and  with  all  its  illusions  too. 
That  school  rejects  attraction  and  affinity  under  the  pre- 
tense that  it  is  impossible  to  form  any  conception  of  those 
forces  without  imagining  in  matter  a  multitude  of  little 
hands  hooking  on  to  each  other.  It  throws  every  thing 
into  the  shape  of  a  formula,  and  asserts  that  any  thing  is 
chimerical  which  wants  the  capacity  of  being  expressed 
mathematically.  That  school  defines  force  as  the  product 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE— LEIBNITZ'S  IDEAS.         59 

mg  of  mass  multiplied  by  momentum,  and  active  force  as 
the  product  mv*  of  mass  multiplied  by  the  square  of  the 
velocity.  Let  us  in  the  first  place  remark  how  highly  un- 
philosophical  it  is  to  regard  the  most  simple  and  irredu- 
cible things  in  the"  world  as  products,  to  confine  within  the 
strict  limits  of  a  one-term  statement  the  living  pulsations 
of  the  infinite  and  the  absolute  in  things.  In  the  next 
place,  the  attempt  to  define  force  by  any  calculation  of 
figures  seems  like  aping  a  man  who  should  insist  that  the 
arrow-marks  used  in  geometrical  diagrams  to  denote  the 
direction  of  forces  were  exact  likenesses  of  the  forces 
themselves.  The  cipher  is  the  sign  of  quantity,  the  line 
that  of  motion.  Force  is  something  else  than  quantity,  a 
very  different  thing  from  motion.  But  let  us  grant  these 
definitions  are  proper :  the  question  still  remains,  What  are 
the  causes  that  produce  acceleration,  velocity,  resistance, 
in  the  mass  ?  Now,  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  connecting 
these  causes  with  some  principle  higher  than  geometries, 
with  a  spontaneity  more  or  less  resembling  that  effort 
which  in  ourselves  goes  before  action.  We  are  thus  al- 
ways brought  back,  whether  we  would  or  not,  to  active 
monads,  whose  infinite  varieties,  infinite  relations,  and  in- 
finite interminglings,  bring  forth  all.  The  accomplished 
writers  we  speak  of  will  in  vain  strive  to  reduce  to  measured 
fractions  of  space  and  of  time  that  which  is  in  its  essence 
the  opposite  of  space  and  time — force ;  and  the  attempt  is 
futile  to  prove  that  we  have  not  a  consciousness  of  the 
dynamic  resistance  of  the  elements  of  the  world  as  clear 
as  that  which  we  have  of  our  own  individual  effort  to 
counterpoise  it. 

It  is  easy  to  point  out  the  cause  of  such  specious  abuse 
of  geometrical  and  mechanical  considerations  in  natural 
philosophy.  It  grows  out  of  ignorance  of  those  biological 
facts  by  which  the  profound  spontaneity,  and  the  reality 
of  forces  consubstantial  with  bodies,  are  revealed  in  a 


60  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

special  way.  Geometry  and  mechanics,  in  their  specula- 
tion, separate  material  points  from  forces,  while  biology 
teaches  us  to  keep  them  bound  together  in  an  indestructible 
and  necessary  unity.  The  science  of  motions  and  of  the 
forms  they  take,  shows  us  only  the  outside  of  the  energy  of 
the  universe.  The  science  of  life,  on  the  contrary,  unveils 
to  us  its  throbbing  heart  and  its  splendid  plan.  Such  is 
the  measureless  and  priceless  service  it  yields  to  knowledge 
and  to  discussion.  Descartes,  and  those  who  attempt  in 
our  day  to  revive  his  system  by  deducing  physics  from 
mechanics,  and  physiology  from  physics,  by  explaining  the 
higher  through  the  lower,  as  Auguste  Comte  says,  by  for- 
bidding anj^  endeavor  to  conceive  first  principles  by  the  aid 
of  last  principles — all  those  philosophers,  whatever  their 
merit  in  other  respects,  have  misunderstood  the  lessons 
yielded  by  the  living  being  in  its  twofold  physiological  and 
psychological  relation.  The  evidences  of  soul  making  one 
and  the  same  with  life  might  have  displayed  to  their  view 
images  of  the  soul  and  of  life  throughout  the  universe, 
instead  of  blind  and  misleading  geometrism.  They  would 
have  understood  that  ciphers  and  diagrams  do  not  solve 
.every  thing,  that  computation  is  not  the  only  method. 
That  which  does  solve  every  thing  is  the  soul,  because  it 
alone  embraces  every  thing,  or  at  least  discovers  in  itself 
alone,  rapt  in  abstraction,  instinctive  secret  affinities  with 
all.  Besides,  the  certain  and  enduring  fame  of  Descartes 
is  great  enough  to  permit  us,  without  fear  of  dimming  its 
deserved  lustre,  to  pronounce  sentence  of  impotence  upon 
any  attempts  made  in  our  day  toward  the  introduction  into 
natural  philosophy  of  false  principles  borrowed  from  his 
teachings.  The  guidance  and  inspiration  which  modern 
biological  science  owes  to  them  attest  the  increasing  honor 
paid  to  the  ideas  of  Leibnitz.1 

1  This  article,  written  during  the  siege  of  Paris  at  the  ambulance  of 
Conflans,  where  I  was  serving  as  physician,  having  access  only  to  a  few 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE— LEIBNITZ'S  IDEAS.         61 

memoranda,  is  unfinished  in  several  respects.  Still  it  has  an  interest  as 
the  sketch  of  some  ideas  upon  history  and  opinions  which  I  have  since 
unfolded  at  greater  length.  See  particularly  my  essay  entitled  "  Leib- 
nitz, the  Naturalist,  Physiologist,  and  Physician"  ("Comptes  rendus  of 
the  Academy  of  Moral  and  Political  Sciences,"  1873). 


THE  GENERAL  CONSTITUTION  OF  LIVING 
BEINGS. 

PHYSICS,  chemistry,  and  physiology,  are  making  marvel- 
ous advances  in  our  day,  in  their  superficial  range ;  but  it 
is,  perhaps,  not  so  clearly  remarked  that  they  are  at  the 
same  time  rising  in  their  aims  and  aspirations.  In  propor- 
tion as  processes  improve  and  doctrines  grow  established, 
Science  takes  fresh  courage  to  attack  lofty  problems  with 
new  vigor,  and  boasts  of  bringing  light  and  certainty  to 
their  solution.  It  takes  up  by  exact  methods  and  with 
very  confident  system  the  discussion  of  the  most  general 
and  comprehensive  questions.  Owning  no  longer  any 
limits  to  its  investigation  of  the  world  of  suns  nor  to  its 
researches  in  the  world  of  atoms  ;  believing,  too,  that  this 
twofold  quest  must  yield  up  to  it  all  the  hidden  things  of 
matter  and  of  spirit,  no  wonder  that  it  is  confident  in  its 
power  to  win  by  such  inquiry  the  knowledge  of  all  that 
has  seemed  hitherto  a  prize  reserved  to  other  capacities 
than  its  own.  Whether  warranted  or  unwarranted,  this 
philosophic  bent  of  modern  science  is  in  either  case  due  to 
the  influence  of  a  multitude  of  discoveries  full  of  interest  in 
spite  of  their  commonly  abstract  nature,  full  of  rich  instruc- 
tion beneath  the  seeming  barrenness  of  their  details. 

If  every  one  carries  about  with  him  certain  notions  as 
to  the  conformation  of  the  chief  viscera  of  animals,  few  per- 
sons, even  among  the  most  enlightened,  have  a  suspicion 
of  the  absorbing  interest  and  the  scope  of  our  knowledge 


THE   GENERAL  CONSTITUTION  OF  LIVING  BEINGS.     63 

regarding  the  inner  composition  of  organs,  the  structure 
and  development  of  their  deepest  and  most  delicate  parts, 
the  curious  properties  of  those  infinitely  tiny  corpuscles 
that  group  together  to  make  up  living  beings.  The  prob- 
lems of  life  stand  forth  in  such  studies  in  all  their  grandeur, 
all  their  mystery  and  charm.  The  silent  revelations  of  the 
microscope  are  here  associated  with  the  eloquent  language 
of  experiments  on  the  animal  frame.  All  the  complexities 
of  chemistry  here  give  their  aid  to  expositions  which  are 
but  the  more  convincing  for  their  extreme  positiveness. 
And  medicine  itself,  if  it  would  escape  stagnation,  is  forced 
to  ask  from  such  studies  the  key  to  riddles  never  answered 
by  any  power  of  empiricism.  These  words  describe  fully 
enough  the  interest  that  must  attend  a  complete  picture  of 
the  present  condition  of  general  anatomy. 


General  anatomy  has  been  created  only  of  late  days. 
Ancient  anatomists,  limiting  their  studies  to  the  examina- 
tion of  the  surface  of  organs,  neglected  to  explore  their 
depths.  Besides,  they  were  long  forced  to  do  without  that 
instrument,  most  indispensable  in  this  kind  of  investigation, 
the  microscope.  During  the  period  beginning  with  Heroph- 
ilus  and  Erasistratus,  who  flourished  three  hundred  years  be- 
fore the  Christian  era,  and  who  are  the  real  founders  of  de- 
scriptive anatomy  of  the  human  body,  extending  down  to 
Galen,  and  from  Galen  onward,  including  the  time  of  Vesa- 
lius,  the  main  subject  of  anatomy  was  formed  nearly  as  a 
complete  body.  A  great  number  of  points  that  remained  ob- 
scure were  afterward  cleared  up  by  Berenger  de  Carpi,  Mas- 
sa,  Servet,  Sylvius,  who  discovered  the  valves  of  the  veins ; 
Eustachi,  who  found  the  tube  and  valve  named  after  him ; 
Varolus,  who  examined  the  brain ;  Botal,  Bauhin,  Cesalpi- 
nus,  Fabricius  of  Aquapendente,  and  a  host  of  others,  who, 
during  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  produced  in  en- 


64  NATUKE  AND  LIFE. 

graving  magnificent  plates  of  almost  as  great  service  to  the 
advance  of  anatomical  studies  as  the  most  successfully  com- 
pleted original  researches.  This  acquired  knowledge,  al- 
ready extensive,  was  improved  in  the  seventeenth  and  eigh- 
teenth centuries  by  a  succession  of  able  men,  whose  names  of 
themselves  recall  laborious  lives  and  brilliant  achievements. 
Harvey,  in  1619,  demonstrates  the  circulation  of  the  blood; 
after  him  Wirsung  points  out  the  pancreatic  duct ;  Pecquet, 
the  thoracic  duct ;  Rudbeck  and  Thomas  Bartholin,  the 
lymphatic  conduits ;  Vieussens  throws  light  upon  the  whole 
of  neurology.  Still  later  Ruysch,  Albinus,  Haller,  Boer- 
haave,  Winslow,  Vicq-d'Azyr,  unite  the  gains  of  their  per- 
sistent investigations  with  those  won  by  their  predecessors. 
To  sum  up  all,  the  descriptive  anatomy  of  the  human 
body  was  in  a  state  of  remarkable  completeness  at  the 
close  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  outward  arrange- 
ment, the  shape  and  relations  of  the  bones,  muscles,  nerves, 
vessels,  and  viscera,  were  settled  in  a  positive  manner,  suffi- 
cient for  the  needs  of  the  surgical  art.  Great  was  the 
amazement  of  old  anatomists  at  that  day  when  a  man  of 
genius  arose,  to  tell  them,  and  convince  them,  too,  that 
merely  the  first  half  of  anatomy  was  known,  and  that  the 
coarser  and  more  superficial  part ;  and  that  another  half, 
full  of  difficulties  and  surprises,  invited  investigation.  This 
is  exactly  the  fact  as  to  general  anatomy  and  Xavier  Bichat, 
who  is  its  founder.  In  truth,  those  organs  known  in  their 
contour,  their  disposition,  and  locality,  were  but  half  known. 
Their  texture,  their  inner  composition,  their  delicate  tissue, 
were  all  unknown.  The  essential  properties  of  the  mem- 
branes that  make  them  up  had  not  been  analyzed.  That  is 
the  aim  of  the  new  anatomy  created  by  Bichat.  A  bold 
and  fertile  experimenter,  as  well  as  an  able  and  clear- 
sighted observer,  equally  skilled  in  knowledge  of  the  sound 
and  of  the  unsound  man,  deep  and  lucid  as  a  thinker,  un- 
tiring and  wonderfully  fortunate  in  the  methodical  investi- 


THE  GENERAL  CONSTITUTION  OF  LIVING  BEINGS.     65 

gation  of  facts,  deliberate  and  cautious  in  establishing  prin- 
ciples, joining  a  broad  and  all-embracing  view  of  things  to 
a  most  just  conviction  of  the  dangers  and  difficulties  of  re- 
searches into  organized  being,  a  spirit  at  once  very  positive 
and  very  lofty,  wanting  neither  boldness  nor  noble  ambition, 
this  great  man  was  destined  perhaps  to  give  new  and  fin- 
ished form  to  biology,  had  death  not  cut  him  off  at  the 
age  of  thirty-two.  Yet  his  unfinished  labors  have  sufficed 
to  raise  it  to  remarkable  completeness  by  leading  the  way 
to  the  knowledge  of  living  tissues.  "  All  animals,"  says 
Bichat,  "  are  a  collection  of  various  organs,  which,  while 
each  performs  one  function,  all  concur,  each  in  its  own 
way,  in  the  conservation  of  the  whole.  They  are  so  many 
special  machines  in  the  general  machine  which  makes  the 
individual.  Now  these  special  machines  are  themselves 
made  up  by  several  tissues  of  very  different  kinds,  and 
which  really  form  the  elements  of  those  organs."  Taking 
for  his  base  the  fact  that  these  various  tissues  are  nearly 
identical  whether  in  some  one  animal  or  in  another,  Bichat 
had  fairly  the  right  to  bestow  on  the  science  that  studies 
them  the  name  of  general  anatomy.  Not  satisfied  with 
describing  them  exactly,  he  undertook  the  categorical 
analysis  of  their  inmost  properties.  At  the  same  time,  he 
caught  a  glimpse  of  the  function  of  the  fundamental  humors 
in  the  system. 

Death  did  not  suffer  Bichat  either  to  extend  his  discov- 
eries in  general  anatomy,  and  apply  them  to  pathology,  or 
to  draw  out  from  them  a  new  system  of  medicine.  This 
was  the  work  of  another  highly-endowed  man,  whose  ar- 
dent disposition,  amazing  vigor  of  mind,  and  generalizing 
sagacity,  made  him  one  of  the  most  original  figures  of  this 
age.  Broussais  explained  diseases  by  the  alteration  of 
the  tissues.  Rejecting  the  "  imaginary  entities  "  and  "  oc- 
cult causes  "  of  ancient  medicine,  looking  for  the  mechani- 
cal action^of  morbid  disturbances  in  the  study  of  the  func- 
4 


66  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

tions  while  regular,  fully  understanding  the  value  of  deep, 
searching  study  into  the  properties  cf  organized  matter, 
this  famous  physician,  by  his  work  upon  fevers,  inflamma- 
tions, and  insanity,  completely  changed  the  teachings  of 
his  time.  Reducing  the  essential  attributes  of  living  mat- 
ter to  one  sole  property,  irritability,  he  endeavored  to  show 
how  disturbances  of  the  system  depend  on  the  increase  or 
decrease  of  that.  This  was  rather  an  hypothesis  at  a  venture, 
which  needed  modification  afterward ;  but  he  had  gained 
so  true  an  insight  into  the  spring  of  vital  phenomena,  he 
had  penetrated  so  deeply  into  the  secret  of  all  modes 
of  organic  activity,  that  the  whole  of  medicine  was  illu- 
minated by  that  proposition.  Broussais  had  shown,  at  any 
rate,  that  disease  does  not  occasion  the  appearance  of  new 
properties  in  the  constituent  parts  of  organs,  but  results 
from  disorder  in  the  intricate  manifestation  of  usual  proper- 
ties. He  had  perceived  that  the  laws  of  disease  are  only 
particular  cases  of  those  general  laws  governing  the  exist- 
ence of  animal  tissues. 

Blainville  did  not  go  beyond  Bichat  as  regards  the 
tissues,  but  he  understood  far  better  the  action  and  organ- 
ization of  those  liquid  parts  distinguished  by  the  name  of 
humors,  and  he  added  the  knowledge  of  these  to  the  ac- 
quisitions of  general  anatomy.  He  traced  the  coincident 
history  of  the  tissues  and  the  humors,  both  regarded  as 
constituent  and  undivided  parts  of  the  system ;  and  he 
threw  new  light  upon  the  systems  that  are  formed  by  the 
grouping  of  similar  tissues.  During  the  time  of  Blain- 
ville, that  is,  in  the  first  third  of  this  century,  foreign  sa- 
vants, applying  to  the  living  tissues  of  animals  the  same 
method  of  observation  applied  by  Mirbel  to  vegetable  ones, 
discovered  that  all  these  tissues,  far  from  being  homogene- 
ous, are  made  up  by  the  interweaving  of  corpuscles  differ- 
ent in  form  and  kind,  only  visible  under  the  microscope, 
and  which  are  called  anatomical  elements.  They  brought 


THE  GENERAL  CONSTITUTION  OF  LIVING  BEINGS.     67 

to  sight  some  of  the  cells,  pores,  and  excessively  small 
tubes,  which  thus  group  together  to  form  the  solid  parts 
observable  by  the  naked  eye.  Gruthuisen,  Heusinger, 
Schleiden,  Schwann,  and  others,  thus  unfolded  the  system 
of  general  anatomy  expounded  by  Xavier  Bichat. 

Medicine  of  old  had  believed  in  the  strangest  doctrines 
as  to  the  liquids  of  the  system,  and  had  connected  them  in 
the  wildest  ways  with  its  theories  upon  health  and  disease. 
The  Hippocratists  and  Galen,  at  a  later  time,  supposed 
there  were  four  humors,  the  blood,  the  phlegm,  yellow  bile, 
and  black  bile,  whose  due  attempering  supported  health, 
while  their  disproportion  or  acridity  occasioned  diseases. 
Moderns  were  for  a  long  time  satisfied  with  these  delusive 
views,  and  it  was  not  until  the  eighteenth  century  that  a 
true  advance  was  made  in  the  knowledge  of  the  humors, 
thanks  to  the  labors  of  the  younger  Rouelle.  After  him, 
Fourcroy,  Vauquelin,  Berzelius,  Chevreul,  Liebig,  Dumas, 
Denis,  etc.,  using  the  exact  method  of  chemical  investiga- 
tions in  the  study  of  these  interesting  parts,  grew  ac- 
quainted with  the  chemical  compounds,  the  immediate 
principles  out  of  which  they  are  formed.  They  also  tried 
to  detect  and  measure  these  principles  in  the  organs  and 
tissues  of  the  system.  Unfortunately,  chemistry  does  not 
avail  to  solve  all  the  problems  of  biology,  and  in  our  day 
we  have  acknowledged  that  chemical  analysis  must  give 
precedence  to  anatomical  analysis  in  researches  into  the 
composition  of  the  machinery  of  the  organism.  In  this 
way  there  came  to  be  formed  a  more  complete  general  anat- 
omy than  that  of  Bichat,  one  that  embraced  the  study 
by  method  of  animated  beings,  beginning  with  their  most 
rudimentary  component  principles,  and  ending  with  those 
complex  tissues  which  are  the  web  of  their  organs. 

II. 

Every  one  knows  how  geologists  decompose  systems 
into  rocks,  and  rocks  into  minerals,  which  are  the  primary 


68  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

elements  of  the  earth's  crust.  Thus  they  distinguish  in 
the  igneous  systems  granite,  syenite,  gneiss,  diorite,  etc. 
They  then  reduce  each  one  of  these  rocks  to  a  certain  num- 
ber of  immediate  principles.  Granite,  for  instance,  will 
yield  felspar,  quartz,  and  mica.  In  like  manner  there  are 
many.degrees  of  complexity  in  the  edifice  of  living  beings, 
which  are  reduced  by  a  series  of  analyses  of  a  similar  kind 
to  a  certain  number  of  elements  which  are  no  less  immedi- 
ate principles,  that  is,  fundamental  chemical  substances. 
Robin  was  one  of  the  first  to  understand  the  need  of  or- 
ganizing, systematically,  our  knowledge  of  these  ingredi- 
ents, these  materials  for  all  vital  elaboration  and  all  or- 
ganic construction. 

Ancient  chemistry  admitted,  without  question,  that  the 
humors  and  tissues  of  the  system  are  made  of  water,  oil, 
earth,  and  salt.  They  sometimes  added  sulphur,  phlegm, 
and  alkali.  All  this-  was  quite  vague  and  uninstructive.  It 
has  since  been  admitted  that  the  number  of  immediate  prin- 
ciples is  considerably  more  extended,  and  that  their  com- 
position is  very  intricate.  The  analyses  of  modern  chem- 
istry have  settled  the  exact  nature  and  the  chief  proper- 
ties of  these  bodies,  but  have  not  yet  reduced  our  knowledge 
of  them  to  system.  They  have  taught  us  that  there  exist 
in  the  system  coloring  matters,  albuminoid  ones,  acids, 
salts,  alkalies,  alcohols,  sugars,  fats,  and  ethers.  M.  Robin, 
taking  up  certain  hints  of  M.  Chevreul,  put  the  immediate 
principles  in  their  true  place,  and  classified  them,  while 
fixing  their  duty  in  the  different  parts  of  the  system. 
These  principles  mark  the  passage  from  chemistry  to 
biology.  Regarded  singly,  in  their  molecular  composition, 
their  chemical  function,  and  the  transmutations  they  may 
undergo  when  influenced  by  reagents,  they  belong  to 
chemistry.  Looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  of  their 
number  and  their  distribution  in  the  living  system,  of  the 
share  they  have  in  the  growth  of  the  animal's  organs  and 


THE  GENERAL  CONSTITUTION  OF  LIVING   BEINGS.     69 

fluids,  of  the  peculiarities  they  present  according  to  ages, 
species,  and  morbid  conditions,  they  belong  to  general  anat- 
omy. Robin  has  pointed  out  how  they  become  grouped 
and  transformed  in  the  cycle  of  life.1 

The  immediate  principles,  gathered  in  a  fixed  order, 
and  with  a  peculiar  structure,  form  corpuscles  of  different 
kinds,  but  always  extremely  fine  and  delicate,  only  visible 
with  the  aid  of  highly-magnifying  microscopes,  and  which 
are  called  anatomical  elements.  These  elements,  placed 
in  contact  and  intertangled  in  a  thousand  ways,  form  the 
tissues  of  the  organs,  and  it  is  essentially  in  them  that  all 
the  forces  of  the  living  being  dwell.  More  complex  than 
some  of  the  infusoria  (monads,  amoebae),  they  stand  as  tiny 
organisms  composing  in  federation  the  organism  of  the 
individual.  Thus  the  physiological  simplifications  of  mod- 
ern science  have  no  other  object  than,  by  processes  of  sa- 
gacious analysis,  to  seize  upon  these  active  monads  that  are 
counted  by  myriads.  These  are  the  simple  bodies  of  biology, 
not  less  indispensable  for  the  clear  rendering  of  vital  facts 
than  those  which  the  genius  of  Lavoisier  has  the  honor  of 
discovering  were  to  the  understanding  of  chemical  facts. 
Among  the  anatomical  elements  a  distinction  is  made  be- 
tween cells,  fibres,  and  tubes.  Cells  are  spheroidal  corpus- 
cles, polyhedral  or  disk  shaped,  having  very  nearly  equal 
dimensions  in  every  direction,  varying  from  five  thou- 
sandths to  one-tenth  of  the  thousandth  part  of  a  metre. 
They  are  formed  of  a  mass  as  a  base,  seldom  having  a  cav- 
ity, but  often  with  one  or  several  nuclei  distinguishable 
within  it,  which  are  sometimes  provided  with  secondary 
nuclei.  These  elements  are  the  ones  most  generally  dis- 
tributed through  the  system.  The  cellular  shape  belongs 
indeed  to  the  red  and  white  globules  of  the  blood,  to  the 
elements  of  the  bones  and  their  marrow,  to  those  of  the 
central  nerve-substance  and  the  ganglions,  to  those  of  the 
1  See,  on  this  subject,  the  introduction  to  my  book  on  "  The  Humors." 


70  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

epidermis,  etc.  The  shape  of  the  different  cells  varies  very 
much  in  different  species.  Some  of  them  even  assume 
very  odd  forms.  The  multipolar  cells  of  the  central  nerve- 
substance  resemble  polypi  with  singular  arms.  Others  are 
star-shaped,  others  spindle-formed,  etc.  The  fibres  have 
the  shape  of  a  narrow  ribbon,  lengthened  out  and  very 
thin,  sometimes  inclosing  one  or  several  nuclei.  The  fun- 
damental elements  of  the  muscles  are  fibres  of  two  kinds : 
those  of  organic  life,  which  are  smooth,  and  varying  in 
length  between  six  -  hundredths  of  one  -  thousandth  of  a 
millimetre  and  five-tenths  of  the  same  dimension;  and 
those  of  the  animal  life,  which  are  striated  and  very  much 
smaller.  The  conjunctiva  tissue  and  the  elastic  tissue  are 
also  made  up  from  special  fibres.  Those  elements  having 
the  shape  of  tubes  are  the  perineura,  which  wraps  the 
primal  elements  of  the  nerve-tubes  in  the  nerves  of  animal 
life,  and  in  the  white  filaments  of  the  great  sympathetic 
nerve ;  the  myolemma,  which  surrounds  the  primal  fibres 
of  the  muscles  of  animal  life ;  the  capillary  vessels,  the 
tubes  of  the  glands,  and  the  parenchyma,  and  last  the  nerve- 
tubes.  These  latter,  which  make  up  the  larger  part  of  the 
nerves,  have  a  diameter  varying  from  one-hundredth  of  a 
millimetre  to  one  ten-thousandth  of  that  dimension.  Mir- 
bel  wrote,  in  1835,  that  the  cells  or  "  utricles  "  are  so  many 
living  individuals,  each  enjoying  the  property  of  growing, 
of  multiplying,  of  certain  limited  modifications,  working 
in  common  for  the  building  up  of  the  plant  of  which  they 
become  themselves  constituent  materials.  He  added,  as 
Turpin  had  already  expressed  it  in  1818,  that  the  plant  is 
thus  a  collective  being.  We  can  now  say  the  same  thing 
of  the  animal.  It  too  is  a  collective  being,  made  up  by 
the  agglomeration  of  the  fibres,  tubes,  and  cells,  which  we 
have  just  described.  We  are  only  federations  of  anatomi- 
cal elements. 

Until  the  time  of  Robin,  the  anatomical  elements  had 


THE   GENERAL  CONSTITUTION  OF  LIVING  BEINGS.     71 

been  more  or  less  confounded  with  the  tissues.  Neither 
their  function  nor  their  biological  characteristics  had  been 
defined.  Phenomena  had  been  explained  without  ascend- 
ing to  those  corpuscles  which  are  the  seat  of  their  begin- 
ning, v  This  savant  regarded  them  for  the  first  time  as 
properly  forming  the  subject  of  a  special  branch  of  anat- 
omy. Besides,  he  discovered  a  certain  number  of  them 
which  had  till  then  escaped  microscopic  observation — the 
perineura  in  the  nerves,  the  medullocele  and  myeloplax  in 
the  marrow  of  the  bones  ;  he  disclosed  the  unknown  func- 
tions of  several  others,  such  as  the  leucocytes,  the  nerve- 
cellules  of  the  ganglia,  the  different  epithelia ;  in  a  word, 
he  shed  new  light  upon  the  history  of  all  by  describing  the 
peculiarities  of  their  origin  and  development. 

Nothing  is  more  instructive  and  attractive  than  the 
study  of  the  anatomical  elements.  They  are  invisible  to 
our  eyes,  but  they  are  not  the  less  the  glowing  centres  in 
which  the  fire  of  life  burns.  It  is  in  and  by  them  that  it 
begins  and  grows ;  it  is  in  them  that  those  fundamental 
attributes  one  after  another  appear,  which  occasion  the 
highest  manifestations  of  animal  existence.  Real  micro- 
cosms, each  living  with  its  own  self-subsisting  life,  they 
are  endowed  with  essential  properties  which  explain  all 
vital  acts.  Their  composition  from  immediate  principles 
is  quite  complex.  It  is  as  inconstant  as  their  structure  is 
delicate  :  subject  to  an  incessant  molecular  renewal,  assimi- 
lating constantly  new  materials,  and  constantly  getting  rid 
of  a  part  of  their  substance,  they  are  in  a  state  of  per- 
manent transmutation.  This  perpetual  renovation  is  ex- 
actly nutrition,  the  positive  mark  of  organized  beings.  No 
life  without  nutrition.  The  lowly  vibrio  nourishes  itself  as 
the  most  complete  mammal  does ;  the  meanest  mould-spot 
as  the  gigantic  cedar.  All  other  properties  of  living  bod- 
ies are  subordinated  to  this  one,  which  is  their  first  condi- 
tion, and  the  most  specific  sign  of  life.  Another  charac- 


72  NATUKE  AND  LIFE. 

teristic  of  the  anatomical  elements  is  evolution,  quite  dis- 
tinct from  nutrition.  These  little  bodies,  at  the  instant 
when  they  make  their  appearance,  are  not  like  what  they 
are  about  to  be  at  a  later  time.  The  more  remotely  from 
the  moment  of  their  birth  we  consider  them,  the  more  dif- 
ferent is  the  aspect  we  observe  them  to  present  from  that 
they  formerly  had.  They  gain  a  larger  bulk,  and  compli- 
cate themselves  with  new  parts,  with  more  perfect  forms, 
which  will  vanish  in  their  turn,  so  that  every  element  thus 
describes  a  curve  of  evolution,  of  which  the  apex,  repre- 
senting the  full-grown  state,  is  reached  more  or  less  rapidly. 

If  nutrition  and  evolution  belong  to  all  anatomical  ele- 
ments, contractility  is  the  privileged  mark  of  a  very  small 
number  among  them.  It  is  peculiar  to  muscular  fibres,  in 
which  it  presents  two  modes  :  In  the  striated  muscular 
fibres  of  animal  life,  it  is  sudden  and  quick ;  in  the  smooth 
fibres  of  organic  life,  it  takes  place  slowly.  It  is  upon  this 
property  that  all  movement  and  locomotion  depend,  since  it 
is  that  which  gives  force  to  the  muscles. 

Innervation  is  the  peculiarity  of  the  nerve-elements. 
Its  manifestations  are  complex  and  diversified,  but  it  is 
specially  marked  above  all  by  this  fact,  that,  far  from  lim- 
iting its  play  to  a  local  action,  it  radiates  from  a  distance 
and  carries  its  influence  far  along.  The  nerve-cell,  in  fact, 
finds  in  the  nerve-tubes  issuing  from  it,  in  the  congenerate 
cell  which  is  appended  to  it,  either  conducting  apparatus, 
designed  to  carry  off  the  force  which  it  produces,  or  a  true 
receiving  apparatus,  designed  to  store  up  that  force,  and 
propel  it  at  a  distance  under  another  form.  A  real  electro- 
dynamic  pair,  as  M.  Luys  has  so  well  expressed  it,  the 
nerve  arrangement  thus  reduced  to  its  simplest  expression, 
itself  engenders  the  force  which  it  transmits  afar.  It  con- 
ducts, receives,  and  transforms  it  in  the  manner  of  those 
machines  for  electric  transmission  which  represent,  in  the 
apparatus  for  generating  electricity,  the  emitting  cell  in 


THE   GENERAL  CONSTITUTION  OF  LIVING  BEINGS.     73 

the  interposed  wire,  the  nerve-tube,  and  in  the  cell  placed 
at  the  other  end  of  the  tube  the  receiving  apparatus  in- 
tended to  record  and  to  translate  into  a  new  form  the  ori- 
ginal impulse.  This  force,  sometimes  centripetal,  in  the 
form  of  sensitiveness,  sometimes  centrifugal,  in  the  shape 
of  thought,  is  also  both  at  once  as  an  impulse  to  movement. 
But  the  most  characteristic  thing  there  is  in  these  acts  of 
innervation  is,  their  spontaneousness.  The  nerve-cells  have 
the  property  of  retaining  the  impression  of  outward  agents 
that  have  affected  them,  and  of  remaining  for  a  greater  or 
less  length  of  time  in  that  condition  in  which  they  have 
been  artificially  placed.  Thus,  in  the  physical  order,  light 
imparts  to  bodies  it  has  touched  for  a  moment  a  real  activ- 
ity, and  makes  them  phosphorescent  for  a  longer  or  shorter 
time.  This  fitness  to  keep  external  impressions  stored  up, 
which  is  the  privilege  almost  exclusively  of  the  nerve-cells, 
may  continue  in  the  latent  state  an  indefinite  time,  may  at 
length  be  lost,  and  not  reveal  itself  promptly  except  under 
the  evoking  power  of  the  first  impression,  or,  it  may  be, 
under  that  of  the  surrounding  cells,  which  are  in  some  sort 
new  centres  of  secondary  stimulations.  Just  as  we  see 
bodies  which  had  become  phosphorescent  by  effect  of  ex- 
posure .to  the  sun  insensibly  lose  that  property,  and  regain 
it  by  the  help  of  some  other  source  of  phosphorescence — 
heat,  for  example — so  the  receptivity  of  cells  may  be  re- 
stored either  under  the  influence  of  the  first  cause,  or  that 
of  some  other  source  of  stimulation.  Let  us  remark  once 
more,  and  this  is  precisely  the  most  important  point  in 
cerebral  innervation,  that  cells  once  agitated  by  contact 
with  outward  impressions  do  not  stop  with  this.  The 
state  in  which  they  find  themselves  after  their  impregna- 
tion by  the  outward  impression,  and  which  M.  Luys  com- 
pares to  phosphorescence,  spreads  on  and  imparts  itself} 
and  proceeds,  by  a  succession  of  intermediate  agitations,  to 
arouse  the  beginning  of  action  in  new  groups  of  cells  situ- 


74  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

ated  at  other  poles,  and  which  combine  with  the  first  in  ex- 
citing in  their  turn  new  impulses.  Such  are  the  chief 
noticeable  ways  in  which  innervation  makes  its  appearance 
and  fulfills  its  action  ;  a  property  which,  rudimentary,  and 
hardly  to  be  detected  in  the  lower  animals,  rises  in  the 
higher  ones,  and  lifts  them,  too,  to  so  lofty  a  degree  of 
perfection.  Whatever  may  be,  as  to  the  rest,  the  first 
cause  of  the  most  striking  acts  of  our  life,  of  the  affections 
and  the  intellect,  we  feel,  will,  imagine,  and  understand, 
only  through  the  means  of  these  nerve-corpuscles  distrib- 
uted through  cur  system,  and  endowed  with  that  power, 
not  paralleled  elsewhere,  of  receiving,  transmitting,  per- 
ceiving, storing  away,  and  modifying  impressions. 

This,  then,  is  one  first  and  fundamental  lesson  yielded 
by  the  study  of  the  anatomical  elements ;  the  play  of  ani- 
mal organisms  is  reduced  to  four  simple  essential  modes  of 
action :  nutrition,  evolution,  contractility,  and  innervation. 
At  once  distinct  and  combined,  sometimes  intricately  in- 
termingled, sometimes  visibly  separate,  consubstantial  with 
those  anatomical  elements  by  which  their  existence  is  made 
known,  capable  of  putting  on  various  and  manifold  ap- 
pearances, these  properties  are  the  springs  of  all  living 
mechanisms.  In  machines  produced  by  man's  industry, 
one  single  force  goes  through  many  forms  to  accomplish 
the  most  various  effects.  In  animals,  several  different  forces 
have  for  their  business,  in  the  midst  of  a  thousand  entan- 
glements and  intricacies,  to  insure  the  perpetuation  of  the 
species  through  the  full  working  of  the  individual. 

We  are  thus  led  to  speak  of  the  generation  of  the  ana- 
tomical elements.  This  question  is  one  of  twofold  gravity  : 
In  the  first  place,  it  abounds  in  difficulties  of  every  kind, 
so  extremely  subtile  are  the  observations  in  the  case,  so 
prompt  the  senses  to  be  misled,  so  ready  the  mind  to  be. 
deceived.  Then  it  borders  on  the  most  formidable  prob- 
lems, not  merely  of  general  anatomy,  but  also  of  naturul 


THE   GENERAL   CONSTITUTION  OF  LIVING  BEINGS.     75 

philosophy,  since  it  is  mixed  with  the  study  of  the  produc- 
tion of  organized  beings  generally.  Robin's  researches 
have  contributed  in  large  measure  to  the  advance  of  knowl- 
edge as  to  these  obscure  phenomena. 

Every  organized  substance,  which  is  nourished  and  de- 
veloped, effects  the  appearance  of  new  anatomical  elements 
in  its  neighborhood.  It  tends  to  create  new  forms  and 
new  activity  about  it.  One  element  may  engender  another 
like  it  by  segmentation,  that  is,  by  breaking  up  into  two 
or  several  parts.  In  cells  with  nuclei,  we  observe  first  the 
breaking  up  of  the  nucleus,  and  then  the  individualization 
of  the  contents  of  the  cell  about  the  little  secondary  nuclei 
thus  formed.  So  a  cell  is  the  point  of  origin  of  three  or 
four  new  cells,  each  of  which  becomes  the  seat  of  exactly 
the  same  phenomenon.  There  is,  in  this  case,  a  sort  of 
partitioning  off  effected  in  the  contents  of  the  cell  in  the 
course  of  its  growth.  A  second  mode  of  production  of 
anatomical  elements  is  gemmation.  In  this  case  there 
forms  at  one  of  the  points  of  the  parent  element  a  bulge,  or 
hernia,  from  which  results  another  element  distinct  from 
the  first.  And  this  proceeding,  like  that  of  segmentation, 
is  much  more  like  a  reproduction  than  a  birth. 

Let  us  consider  the  third  mode.  In  this  the  anatomi- 
cal elements  are  born  in  full  completeness  within  and  at  the 
expense  of  a  living  liquid,  issuing  from  already-existing 
anatomical  elements.  This  liquid,  called  blastema,  is  made 
up  of  immediate  principles,  which  proceed  from  a  transu- 
dation  of  the  organized  substance,  into  the  interstices  of 
which  it  flows.  The  blastema  is  eminently  the  fertiliz- 
ing liquid,  the  secret  region  in  which  are  condensed  the 
creative  forces  of  life,  making  themselves  evident  by  a  con- 
tinuous elaboration  of  cells,  fibres,  and  tubes,  which  are 
the  rudiments  of  tissues  and  organs.  In  it  a  very  tiny 
nucleus  at  first  makes  its  appearance,  which  little  by  little 
envelops  itself  with  solidified  matter,  that  ends  by  gaining 


76  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

a  fixed  shape  and  a  special  structure.  The  elements  of  the 
tissue  of  plants  form  in  the  same  way  within  a  mucilagi- 
nous liquid  called  cambium,  and  in  which  the  most  improved 
instruments  detect  nothing  but  shapeless  matter.  There 
are  as  many  different  blastemas  as  there  are  tissues ;  in 
other  words,  the  anatomical  elements  of  each  tissue  exude 
between  them  those  generative  fluids  whence  similar  ele- 
ments spring.  We  shall  presently  have  occasion  to  notice 
some  interesting  instances  of  this. 

This  hatching  of  living  molecules  in  the  mass  of  blaste- 
ma, proved  by  Robin's  numberless  experiments,  confirmed 
by  those  of  many  other  savants*  is  a  true  spontaneous 
generation.  In  fact,  organized  corpuscles  are  here  devel- 
oped without  germs  or  parents,  in  the  midst  of  a  liquid  in 
which,  a  few  moments  earlier,  nothing  would  authorize  us 
to  foretell  their  appearance.  Only  this  liquid  results  from 
a  living  organism,  that  is,  one  whose  elementary  particles 
are  themselves  in  course  of  ceaseless  molecular  renewal. 
Beyond  these  facts  we  have  not  been  able  to  prove  abso- 
lutely that  beings,  even  microscopic  ones,  can  be  produced 
simply  by  the  concurrence  of  physico-chemical  forces. 
The  numerous  experiments  which  have  occasioned  within 
a  few  years  so  hot  and  passionate  controversies,  prove 
that  a  liquid  or  an  infusion  observed  in  the  vessels  of 
a  laboratory  remains  absolutely  barren  as  long  as  it  is 
guarded  from  contact  with  germs  and  spores  conveyed  by 
the  atmosphere.  This  result,  demonstrated  by  M.  Pasteur, 
demolishes  all  the  arguments  called  up  in  support  of  hete- 
rogenesis. 

The  three  modes  of  birth  that  we  have  just  examined 
are  the  very  modes  of  generation  of  living  beings,  since 
these  invariably  begin  by  anatomical  elements.  To  give  a 
clearer  idea  of  these  very  curious  operations  of  Nature,  let 
us  see  what  takes  place  in  the  organized  granule  which  is 
1  See  the  late  works  of  Messrs.  Oniraus,  Feltz,  and  others. 


THE   GENERAL  CONSTITUTION  OF  LIVING  BEINGS.     77 

the  starting-point  of  the  formation  and  development  of 
the  embryo,  that  is,  in  the  ovule.  We  shall  there  point 
out  these  three  modes  at  work. 

The  ovule  is  a  little  globule,  from  one  to  two  tenths  of 
a  millimetre  in  diameter,  that  is,  as  large  as  a  grain  of 
sand  that  can  but  just  be  seen.  It  is  made  up  of  an  en- 
veloping sphere,  called  the  vitelline  membrane,  in  which 
is  found  a  semi-liquid  gelatinous  matter,  to  which  the 
name  of  vitellus  *  is  given.  The  vitellus  in  its  turn  presents 
a  sort  of  nucleus  which  is  the  germinating  vesicle,  or  that 
of  PurJcinje.  Thus  the  ovule  offers  to  view  at  the  outset 
the  marks  of  a  true  cell,  but  it  gains,  while  developing,  a 
structure  and  dimensions  that  soon  distinguish  it  from  one, 
and  make  of  it  a  special  organ.  When  it  has  reached  the 
period  of  maturity,  the  germinating  vesicle  disappears,  and 
its  substance  mingles  with  that  of  the  vitellus.  At  the 
same  time  the  latter  shrinks  upon  itself,  and  contracts. 
There  comes  between  it  and  the  wall  of  the  vitelline  mem- 
brane a  space  which  fills  up  with  a  clear  liquid.  It  is  at 
this  moment  that  the  phenomenon  of  fecundation  occurs, 
which  is  owing  to  the  penetration  of  the  spermatozoa, 
which  make  their  way  into  the  newly-formed  space  that  we 
have  mentioned.  Then  the  vitellus  loses  shape,  and  for  sev- 
eral minutes  goes  through  a  series  of  very  varied  gyratory 
motions,  which  Robin  has  studied.  Simultaneously  the 
spermatozoa — which  are,  as  Robin  has  proved,  true  ana- 
tomical elements  proceeding  from  male  ovules,  analogous 
to  the  embryonic  cells  of  the  female  ovules  —  dissolve, 
and  thus  mingle  the  substance  of  one  parent  with  that 
of  the  other,  which  they  impregnate.  There  is  then  re- 
marked a  very  curious  fact,  also  discovered  and  studied 

1  Birds'  eggs  contain  their  ovule  in  the  centre,  the  development  of 
which,  instead  of  taking  place  by  means  of  materials  provided  directly 
by  the  mother,  is  made  at  the  expense  of  materials  contained  in  the  egg, 
that  is,  the  white  and  the  yelk. 


78  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

by  Robin,  the  production  of  polar  globules.     These  glob- 
ules are  little  prominences  which  rise  by  gemmation  on 
the  surface  of  the  vitellus.     They  mark  the  point  at  which 
the  depression  of  the  latter,  and  then  its  breaking  up,  will 
afterward  begin.     At  the  same  time  a  new  nucleus,  the 
vitelline  nucleus,  is  born  complete,  by  spontaneous  gen- 
eration, in  the  depths  of  the  primitive  mass.     This  nucleus 
breaks  up  and  divides  into  several  nuclei,  about  which  the 
substance  of  the  vitellus  forms  separate  groups,  and  thore 
thus  arise  cells  which  proceed,  by  ranging  themselves  close 
against  the  wall  of  the  vitelline  membrane,  to  form  another 
membrane,  called  the  blastoderma.     This  segmentation  of 
the  vitellus,  discovered  in  1824  by  Prevost  and  Dumas,  is 
exceedingly  important,  seeing  that  the  first  elements  of  the 
embryo  proceed  immediately  from  blastodermic  cells.     It 
must  be  remarked  that  in  insects  and  spiders,  as  Robin 
has  discovered,  the  vitellus  does  not  split  up.     In  these 
little  beings  the  cells  of  the  blastoderma  are  formed  by 
gemmation  of  the  surface  portion  of  the  vitellus ;  that  is 
to  say,  the  polar  globules,  instead  of  being  developed  at 
one  single  point  of  the  latter,  make  their  appearance  over 
its  whole  surface,  to  compose  the  blastodermic  membrane. 
In  brief,  the  essential  mechanism  of  generation  is  reduced 
to  the  following  succession  of  phenomena,  taking  place  in 
the  depths  of  the  ovule  or  of  the  egg  within  a  time  which 
varies  from  twelve  to  twenty-four  hours :  1.  The  disappear- 
ance of  the  germinating  vesicle;  2.  Shrinking  of  the  vi- 
tellus; 3.  Penetration  by  the  spermatozoa ;  4.  Loss  of  form 
and  gyration  by  the  vitellus;  5.  Production  of  the  polar 
globules  by  gemmation ;  6.  Origin  of  the  vitelline  nucleus 
by  genesis;  7.  Splitting  up  of  the  vitellus ;  8.  Composition 
of  the  blastoderma;  9.  Formation  of  the  embryonic  dot; 
10.  Appearance  of  the  first  definite  elements  of  the  embryo. 
As  we  see,  the  new  being,  formed  of  well-constituted  ana- 
tomical  elements,  has   received   none   of  them   from   its 


THE   GENERAL   CONSTITUTION  OF  LIVING  BEINGS.     79 

mother.  The  materials  that  have  acted  together  in  the 
gradual  production  of  these  elements  have  come  to  it  only 
molecule  by  molecule,  through  the  enveloping  membranes. 

Robin's  doctrine  with  regard  to  the  production  of 
anatomical  elements  within  blastemas  is  not  accepted  by 
some  German  physicians,  who  persist  in  maintaining  the 
cellular  theory ,  established  in  vegetable  physiology  about 
1838  by  Schleiden,  and  extended  later  by  Schwann  to  ani- 
mal physiology.  This  theory  admits  that  all  the  anatomi- 
cal elements  of  animals  proceed  from  a  succession  of  direct 
transformations  of  the  cell.  One  single  primordial  cell  is 
the  source  of  the  most  dissimilar  elements,  nerve-elements, 
muscle-elements,  etc.  The  cell  springs  from  the  cell  by 
proliferation  •  the  other  elements  spring  from  it  by  meta- 
morphosis. The  most  complex  organism  thus  results, 
through  a  series  of  varied  transfigurations,  from  one  simple 
rudimentary  ovule.  It  is,  as  we  see,  the  doctrine  of  Lamarck 
and  of  Darwin,  applied  to  the  genesis  of  the  embryo.  The 
question  is  important.  It  has  lately  given  rise  to  cele- 
brated discussions,  and  perhaps  it  is  as  well  to  consider 
it  briefly  here. 

Otnnis  cellula  e  cellula,  say  the  partisans  of  Schwann's 
theor}'.  That  might  be  readily  granted,  if  the  system  con- 
tained none  but  similar  cells ;  but  there  is  in  it  a  great 
number  of  elements  so  distinct  that  the  mind  cannot  com- 
prehend how  some  of  them  could  be  emitted  by  the  rest. 
It  refuses  to  allow,  for  instance,  that  leucocytes,  which 
water  attacks  and  acetic  acid  dissolves,  proceed,  by  pro- 
liferation, either  from  neuclei  of  cellular  tissue  or  from 
epithelial  nuclei,  which  those  reagents  do  not  affect.  We 
can  hardly  believe  that  sons  are  so  very  unlike  their  fathers. 
"We  can  form  no  idea  how  muscular  fibres  and  nerve-tubes 
can  issue  from  globules  that  bear  no  resemblance  whatever 
to  them,  either  as  regards  composition  or  as  regards  proper- 
ties. Besides,  such  a  relationship  has  never  been  directly 


80  NATURE   AND   LIFE. 

proved.  It  is  very  plainly  seen  that  cells  which  have  be- 
come individualized  by  splitting  up,  are  the  seat  of  a  di- 
vision which  gives  rise  to  other  cells ;  but  that  only  occurs 
when  the  mother-cells  have  gained  or  exceeded  their  com- 
plete development  and  their  regular  dimensions.  Now 
this  fact,  which  has  been  taken  as  the  starting-point  of  the 
cellular  theory,  is  a  mere  phenomenon  of  evolution,  and 
not  a  fact  of  production.  The  inventors  of  that  theory, 
for  want  of  observing  closely  and  continuously  enough, 
have  quite  as  widely  misunderstood  what  takes  place  when 
we  see  certain  anatomical  elements  succeed  to  others  of  a 
different  kind,  as  in  the  case  of  the  liquefaction  of  one  set 
of  elements,  and  then  the  formation  of  a  blastema  in  which 
the  second  set  is  produced.  This  is  a  real  genesis  by  sub- 
stitution, as  Robin  calls  it,  and  not  a  direct  emission,  a 
proliferation,  as  is  taught  in  the  schools  across  the  Rhine. 
In  this  case  there  are  several  phases  which  have  escaped 
the  observation  of  the  too  systematic  doctors  of  Berlin 
and  Wurzburg,  but  which  French  savants  have  settled  in 
a  way  not  to  be  gainsaid,  not  being  blinded,  like  the  for- 
mer, by  a  preconceived  idea.  What  these  same  Germans 
call  endogenous  generation,  that  is,  generation  within  a 
cell,  is  quite  as  much  an  exceptional  mode  of  production  of 
anatomical  elements,  but  one  that  in  no  way  contradicts 
those  we  have  enumerated,  and  in  no  way  avails  to  prop  up 
Schwann's  theory.  The  cellular  theory  is  a  doctrine  as  de- 
lusive as  it  is  convenient  and  attractive.  It  is  one  of  the 
numerous  mistakes  introduced  into  German  science  by 
that  philosophy  of  Nature  so  highly  relished  by  the  con- 
temporaries of  Schelling  and  Oken,  and  of  which  the  traces 
are  to  be  found  in  the  works  of  man}-  eminent  savants  of 
Germany  even  at  this  day.  Flattering  as  it  is  to  that  in- 
clination by  which  we  are  led  to  the  desire  to  confound 
things  the  most  disparate  in  one  chimerical  unity,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  such  a  philosophy  should  so  long  have  im- 


THE   GENERAL  CONSTITUTION  OF  LIVING  BEINGS.     81 

posed  upon  minds  that  took  every  thing  to  be  real  except 
the  reality  itself. 

Some  biologists  of  the  same  school  have  been  led  by 
a  similar  mistake  to  the  notion  of  a  supposed  property 
inherent  in  living  tissues,  the  peculiarity  of  which  is  the 
power  they  have  of  setting  up  action  under  the  most  vary- 
ing influences.  They  have  given  this  property  the  name 
of  irritability,  the  same  peculiarity  formerly  regarded  by 
Broussais  as  a  specific  one,  and  used  by  him  as  the  main- 
stay of  his  theory.  This  irritability,  neither  specific  nor 
spontaneous,  is  nothing  else  than  the  manifestation  of  one 
of  the  five  fundamental  properties  of  organized  substance. 
At  least  it  is  always  reducible  to  that,  as  Robin  has 
shown,  and  could  not  from  any  point  of  view  be  regarded 
as  a  new  property.  The  anatomical  elements  are  in  a  state 
of  incessant  transformation,  and  therefore  the  least  thing 
may  disturb  their  equilibrium,  and  bring  about  what  is 
called  irritation.  Let  a  single  atom  of  their  mass  experi- 
ence a  derangement  of  any  kind,  the  remainder  of  them 
undergoes  its  reaction,  and  all  the  properties  of  the  element 
are  differently  affected.  Heat,  cold,  electricity,  chemical 
substances,  in  a  word,  any  causes  that  can  affect  the  mo- 
lecular condition  of  the  elements,  thus  act  on  organized 
substance.  It  is  the  instability  in  a  system  of  such  restless 
and  fleeting  changes  which  makes  it  so  quick  to  feel  all  in- 
fluences, so  irritable ;  but,  we  repeat,  irritants  call  forth  in 
it  nothing  more  than  the  exhibition  of  the  properties  we 
have  mentioned. 

"  Cleave  an  atom,"  the  Persian  poet  says,  "  and  you  will 
find  in  it  a  sun."  So  the  anatomical  element,  examined  in 
its  deepest  recesses,  yields  us  the  magnificent  vision  of  life. 
It  unveils  for  us  its  secret  machinery,  its  hidden  energies, 
its  latent  springs,  its  concealed  forces ;  teachings  full  of 
light,  which  have  transformed  the  conceptions  of  philoso- 
phy regarding  the  world  of  life. 


82  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

III. 

Thus  we  are  brought  back  again,  after  a  rather  long 
circuit,  to  the  tissues  of  Bichat.  In  fact,  it  is  by  the  piling 
together  or  the  interlacing  in  a  thousand  cross-ways  that 
these  tissues  are  formed,  and  they  in  turn  mingle  to  com- 
pose organs.  The  study  of  the  tissues,  or  histology,  is  no 
doubt  that  portion  of  anatomy  which,  by  its  amazing  and 
priceless  revelations,  has  most  strongly  attracted  contem- 
porary physicians  and  physiologists.  The  number  of  ana- 
tomical elements  that  come  together  to  make  up  a  given 
portion  of  tissue,  could  no  more  be  computed  than  that  of 
the  grains  of  sand  on  the  sea-shore.  When  we  think  that 
these  elements,  having  the  shape  of  cells,  tubes,  and  fibres, 
are  measured  by  thousandths  of  the  thousandth  part  of  a 
metre,  it  is  clear  that  a  shred  of  skin  or  muscle,  a  bit  of 
brain  or  bone,  contains  immense  quantities  of  them.  How- 
ever, this  question  is  only  one  of  secondary  interest. 
What  it  is  important  to  know  is,  the  arrangement  of  these 
elements  and  the  order  in  which  they  combine  to  compose 
the  tissue ;  in  a  word,  it  is  the  texture  of  it.  Apart  from 
the  tissue-products,  which  result  from  merely  bringing  ana- 
tomical elements  of  the  same  kind  into  contact,  all  the 
other  tissues  present  one  sort  of  element  called  fundamen- 
tal, because  it  predominates,  and  gives  the  tissue  its  chief 
properties,  while  also  it  is  associated  with  other  sorts, 
which  are  called  accessory.  Tissue-products  thus  present 
the  simplest  degree  of  texture,  and  in  their  normal  con- 
dition contain  no  vessels.  Of  this  number  are  the  epider- 
mis or  epithelial  tissue,  the  tissue  of  nails  and  horns,  which 
are  formed  wholly  of  epithelial  cells,  the  crystalline  tissue, 
wThich  is  made  up  of  fibres  arranged  in  concentric  layers, 
etc.  The  other  tissues,  that  is,  by  far  the  majority  of  the 
whole,  present  a  very  complicated  texture.  Several  dis- 
tinct sorts  of  anatomical  elements  are  in  these  associated 
in  definite  grouping.  The  part  fulfilled  by  the  tissue  is 


THE   GENERAL   CONSTITUTION  OF  LIVING   BEINGS.     £3 

the  sum  of  the  properties  inherent  in  each  sort  of  element, 
while  the  characteristics  of  the  fundamental  element  pre- 
dominate. The  accessory  elements  in  a  manner  restrain 
the  too  great  activity  of  this  latter,  and  thus  take  part  in 
giving  to  the  tissue  properties  of  a  secondary  order  indeed, 
but  indispensable  to  the  discharge  of  its  duty,  which  is  thus 
the  result  of  manifold  properties.  When  the  texture  of 
these  organic  webs  is  studied  under  a  microscope,  we  are 
often  astonished  at  the  prodigious  complexity  they  exhibit. 
Nothing  is  so  curious  as  the  disposition  and  arrangement 
of  all  these  tiny  centres  of  life,  some  round,  others  polyhe- 
dric,  others  thread-like,  others  again  tubular,  and  all  so 
small  that  the  humblest  flesh-worm  is  a  monster  beside 
them.  Sometimes  the  fibres  are  tangled  inextricably,  like 
dense  ivy  around  an  aged  trunk ;  sometimes  there  is  a 
singular  net,  formed  by  the  capillaries  with  fine  meshes, 
in  which  the  cells  crowd  and  crush  themselves  out  of  shape. 
Sometimes  we  find  clusters  in  which  little  bladders  are 
arranged  along  a  crooked  channel ;  sometimes  there  are 
layers,  piled  one  on  another,  resembling  geological  strata. 
In  a  word,  the  arrangement  of  the  elements  is  exceedingly 
diversified,  and,  if  we  might  say  that  the  tissues  are  words 
in  which  anatomical  elements  stand  for  the  letters,  it  must 
be  added  that  the  order  of  the  latter  is  much  more  compli- 
cated than  is  the  case  with  the  terms  of  spoken  language, 
and  very  differently  too. 

The  nerve-tissue,  the  real  masterpiece  of  vital  force,  has 
been  well  understood  only  since  histology  has  disclosed  to 
us  all  the  elements* of  that  fragile  whitish  pulp.  The 
structure  of  the  ganglia,  the  connections  they  have  with 
the  nerves,  the  difference  between  nerve-tubes  and  nerve- 
cells,  have  been  made  out  by  Robin.  He  it  was,  too,  who 
discovered  the  lymphatic  vessels  of  the  brain-substance. 
These  lymphatics  encircle  the  blood-vessels  traversing  the 
central  nerve-tissues  in  such  a  way  that  the  latter  are  com- 


84:  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

pletely  sheathed  in  the  former.  The  lymph  circulates  with 
its  globules  between  the  inner  surface  of  the  lymphatic  and 
the  outer  surface  of  the  capillary,  which  occupies  the  cen- 
tre. The  texture  of  the  marrow  of  the  bones,  the  placenta, 
the  umbilical  vesicle,  the  skin,  the  arteries,  the  pancreas, 
has  been  illuminated  with  strong  light  by  the  investiga- 
tions of  the  same  observer.  It  may  even  be  said  that,  of 
the  thirty  tissues  of  the  system,  there  is  not  one  whose 
nature  is  not  better  understood  through  his  labors.  And 
this  work  performed  has  suggested  another  to  him :  we 
mean  the  comparison  of  the  same  organic  parts  with  each 
other  at  different  times  in  their  existence ;  that  is  to  say, 
the  establishment  of  general  comparative  anatomy.  In  this 
vast  field  of  histological  comparison,  so  little  explored  be- 
fore his  time,  Robin  has  collected  many  precious  truths  for 
the  general  science  of  biology. 

We  have  seen  that  the  normal  tissues  of  the  organism 
consist  of  a  fundamental  anatomical  element  and  of  a  cer- 
tain number  of  accessory  elements.  Medical  art  has  gained 
wholly  unexpected  light  from  the  discovery  of  this  order 
of  facts.  The  works  of  modern  micrographers,  particularly 
those  of  Hannover,  Lebert,  Virchow,  Robin,  Broca,  Follin, 
etc.,  have  proved,  in  fact,  that  all  morbid  growths,  and 
especially  those  known  under  the  names  of  tumors,  cysts, 
polypi,  cancers,  tubercles,  and  scirrhous  growths,  proceed 
merely  from  the  superabundant,  excessive  formation  of 
some  one  of  these  accessory  elements.  It  is  now  demon- 
strated that  those  new  formations,  so  often  repulsive  in  ap- 
pearance, and  concealing  the  seeds  of  death,  contain  nothing 
which  is  foreign  to  the  organization  in  its  sound  state,  and 
are  not  characterized  by  any  peculiar  substance  produced 
under  the  influence  of  the  disease.  They  are  due  some- 
times to  hyper  genesis,  that  is,  to  an  unusual  collection  of 
some  accessory  element  taking  part  in  the  regular  composi- 
tion of  the  tissue  in  which  they  are  developed ;  sometimes 


THE   GENERAL  CONSTITUTION  OF  LIVING  BEINGS.     85 

to  the  heterotopy  of  some  other  element,  that  is,  to  the  ap- 
pearance of  that  element  where  it  is  not  usually  produced. 
Cancer,  for  instance,  that  terrible  cancer,  gnawing  and 
spreading,  is  wholly  composed — who  would  have  believed 
it  ? — of  an  excessive  development  of  epithelial  cells  iden- 
tical with  those  of  our  skin,  or  differing  from  them  only 
by  slight  peculiarities  whose  origin  is  easily  explained. 
Phthisis,  that  terrible  scourge  which  decimates  our  race,  is 
caused  by  the  development  of  a  matter  called  tuberculous, 
composed  of  epithelial  embryoplastic  nuclei,  become  gran- 
ular and  fatty,  and  mixed  with  spindle-shaped  bodies,  all  of 
them  elements  that  are  formed  in  the  system  in  the  usual 
state.  The  lungs  are  thus  attacked  and  destroyed  by  prod- 
ucts of  a  cheesy  appearance,  made  by  the  effect  of  the 
same  law  that  governs  normal  products,  but  under  different 
conditions.  Heterotopy  discloses  to  us  other  phenomena 
equally  extraordinary.  There  have  been  found  in  the 
ovary  cysts  containing  in  their  inner  wall  a  true  skin,  fur- 
nished with  papillae,  epidermis,  hairy  follicles,  hairs,  and 
perspiratory  glands.  Teeth  have  even  been  found  devel- 
oping in  the  abdomen.  All  these  organs  are  accidentally 
produced  in  those  regions,  having  by  fortuitous  concourse 
found  the  circumstances  favorable  to  their  appearance  all 
existing  there.  Robin  has  remarked,  in  the  neighborhood 
of  certain  glands  of  the  body,  the  formation  of  small  masses 
consisting  wholly  of  tissue  identical  with  that  of  the 
breast.  So,  too,  late  experiments  by  Oilier  and  Goujon,  con- 
firming those  of  Flourens,  nave  taught  us  that  bones  may 
be  produced  at  any  points  in  the  system  •  to  which  perios- 
teum or  fresh  marrow  is  taken,  in  the  stomach,  for  instance. 
This  singular  production  of  bony  substance  has  not  yet 
been  observed  taking  place  spontaneously,  but  it  is  easy  to 
effect  it  by  experiment  on  animals. 

The  formation  of  the  tissue  of  a  scar  is  nothing  else 
than  a  renovation  of  the  layer-tissue  of  the  skin ;  and  all 


86  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

the  tissues,  excepting  one  only,  may  thus  be  renewed  in  the 
system,  when  they  have  been  destroyed  in  it  by  any  pro- 
cess, and  they  are  reproduced  in  accordance  with  the  same 
rules  that  govern  their  appearance  and  their  development 
in  the  embryo  state.  Robin,  who  has  expressed  this  law, 
extends  it  to  the  production  of  morbid  tissues  also.  Be- 
sides the  restoration  of  the  tissues,  the  naturalist  notes 
also  that  of  some  organs.  The  famous  experiments  of 
Spallanzani  have  placed  beyond  question  the  reproduction 
of  the  limbs  and  tail  of  the  salamander.  The  restoration 
of  the  tails  of  lizards  has  been  always  known,  only  that  no 
vertebrse  had  been  remarked  in  the  newly -formed  append- 
age. Charles  Legros  has  lately  found  that  vertebras  do 
appear  in  it  at  the  end  of  two  years  after  amputation.  He 
has  also  effected  the  complete  reproduction  of  the  eyes  and 
of  a  part  of  the  head  of  salamanders,  from  which  he  had  cut 
off  the  entire  head  with  scissors,  only  sparing  the  brain. 
He  has  also  procured  the  new  growth  of  a  tail  in  dormice ; 
but  he  did  not  succeed  in  keeping  the  animals  long  enough 
to  give  the  vertebrae  time  to  make  their  appearance  within 
the  organ. 

These  phenomena  show  us  one  and  the  same  law  gov- 
erning the  various  exhibitions  of  the  power  of  evolution,  in 
disease  as  in  health.  We  find  in  the  facts,  already  well 
known,  of  animal-grafting,  other  remarkable  proofs  of  that 
power.  Bert's  experiments  have  shown,  from  a  new  point 
of  view,  how  certain  animal  organs  may  be  removed  from 
place,  and  transferred  to  a  part  of  the  system  which  is  not 
their  original  home,  and  may  yet  continue  living  there. 
We  may  even  transfer  and  graft  tissues  from  one  kind  of 
animal  upon  another  kind ;  we  may  inject  the  blood-glob- 
ules of  one  animal  into  the  veins  of  an  animal  of  another 
species,  and  these  globules  in  that  new  place  discharge 
their  peculiar  function.  There  are  cases  in  which  animals, 
and  me,n  also,  brought  by  loss  of  blood  into  a  state  of  seem- 


THE   GENERAL   CONSTITUTION  OF  LIVING  BEINGS.     87 

ing  death,  have  been  restored  to  life  by  the  transfusion  of 
blood  from  a  being  of  the  same  species  of  either  sex ;  we 
know,  moreover,  that  calves'  blood  and  lambs'  blood  have 
been  injected  into  the  veins  of  men  who  have  lived  after  it ; 
that  the  case  has  been  the  same  in  the  instance  of  the 
transfusion  of  human  blood  into  a  dog,  of  that  from  a  sheep 
and  a  calf  into  a  dog,  from  a  calf  to  a  sheep  and  a  chamois, 
and  in  the  case  of  transfusion  from  a  dog,  a  rabbit,  or  a 
Guinea-pig,  to  a  hen  and  a  cock.  These  phenomena  of 
physiology,  added  to  the  results  of  anatomical  observations, 
leave  no  doubt  as  to  the  specific  identity  of  the  elements 
in  the  entire  animal  series. 

This  acknowledged  identity  in  the  solids  extends  also 
to  the  liquids  of  the  living  system,  and  these  liquids  are 
parts  not  less  indispensable  for  the  complete  effect  of  vital 
phenomena.  Formed  by  the  mixture  of  very  many  imme- 
diate principles  dissolved  by  each  other's  help  in  water, 
and  holding  suspended  often  one,  two,  or  three  kinds  of 
anatomical  elements,  the  humors  are  more  complicated 
than  those  elements,  while  they  are  less  so  than  the  tissues. 
For  a  long  time  the  exclusive  property  of  chemists,  the 
study  of  the  humors,  thanks  to  Robin,  has  once  more  taken 
its  natural  and  proper  place  in  the  series  of  anatomical 
studies.  These  moving  organs  are  studied  with  the  same 
system,  by  the  same  processes,  and  in  the  same  spirit  of 
subordination  to  physiological  and  pathological  experiences, 
as  the  firm  and  immovable  organs  placed  in  a  fixed  position. 

Robin  has  thus  done  for  the  humors  what  he  had  al- 
ready done  for  immediate  principles  and  anatomical  ele- 
ments. He  has  put  them  in  their  true  place,  has  classified 
them  and  pointed  out  their  function  in  the  generality  of 
organic  acts.  He  divides  animal  liquids  into  three  classes : 
the  constituent  humors,  the  secretions,  and  the  excretions. 
And  there  is  a  positive  satisfaction  for  the  mind  in  the 
picture  he  gives  us  of  the  relations  of  these  three  classes 


88  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

in  the  system  of  vital  operations.  The  constituent  humors, 
the  blood,  chyle,  and  lymph,  conveying  throughout  into 
the  inmost  parts  of  the  tissues  and  organs  those  materials 
of  nutrition  designed  to  be  assimilated,  and  that  oxygen 
fitted  to  aid  the  work  of  assimilation,  are  eminently  the 
vivifying  fluids.  They  bathe  the  whole  system,  they  pour 
into  it  ceaselessly  new  stores  of  strength  and  warmth, 
they  maintain  it  in  its  harmonious  and  perfect  working. 
They  are  true  organic  media,  intervening  between  the  ex- 
ternal medium  surrounding  the  individual,  and  the  ana- 
tomical elements  lodged  deep  within  the  body.  They  are 
organized,  and  have  the  faculty  of  nutrition,  that  is,  their 
substance  is  molecularly  renewed  in  a  continuous  way. 
While  the  secretions,  and  the  excretions  particularly,  are 
liquids  devoid  of  life,  made  by  the  glands  and  the  paren- 
chyma at  the  expense  of  the  blood,  the  blood,  so  to  speak, 
creates  itself  with  the  materials  it  receives  as  well  by  way 
of  the  lungs  as  by  that  of  the  whole  digestive  canal.  The 
blood  is  a  laboratory  in  which  the  most  varied  and  elusive 
transformations  take  place,  in  very  minute  intervals  of 
time — so  minute  that  it  is  impossible  for  the  biologist's 
vision  to  seize  all  their  phases,  and  follow  their  headlong 
successive  course.  The  whole  of  chemistry  of  which  we 
have  any  knowledge  unfolds  itself  in  this  laboratory ;  but 
another  chemistry  also  moves  there  in  incessant  action,  of 
whose  laws  we  can  but  gain  a  glimpse.  In  fact,  those  im- 
mediate principles  which  pass  into  the  blood  in  the  form 
of  fatty  substance,  of  sugary  and  of  albuminoid  matter, 
and  pass  out  of  it  under  the  form  of  cholesterine,  leucine, 
tyrosine,  urea,  creatine,  etc.,  do  not  pass  instantly  from 
one  state  to  another.  During  all  the  course  of  combustion 
sustained  by  breathing  they  undergo  a  thousand  isomeric 
modifications  and  specific  changes,  of  which  we  know 
nothing.  We  seize  only  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  the 
phenomenon,  but  the  middle  course  of  it  evades  our  view. 


THE  GENERAL  CONSTITUTION  OF  LIVING  BEINGS.     89 

Not  one  organic  molecule  in  it  is  identical  with  itself  for 
two  successive  instants.  There  is  going  on  there,  in  those 
myriads  of  capillaries,  a  work  of  which  we  have  no  concep- 
tion. These  metamorphoses  are  real  chemical  equations 
in  action,  they  are  life's  mathematical  series,  analogous  to 
those  studied  by  the  infinitesimal  calculus.  When  shall 
the  Leibnitz  come  who  will  reveal  to  us  the  analytical 
processes  we  may  apply  to  that  burning  blood  ? 

However  that  may  be,  this  mobility  of  the  sanguine 
fluid  is  precisely  what  makes  it  capable  of  undergoing 
modifications  of  every  kind  under  the  influence  of  miasmatic 
matters  sometimes  contained  in  the  air.  The  albuminoid 
substance,  which  is  the  fundamental  part  of  the  blood-com- 
pound, readily  comes  into  union  with  poisonous  molecules 
originating  without,  and,  when  one  point  is  once  affected, 
the  change  passes  on  from  neighbor  to  neighbor,  molecule 
to  molecule,  throughout  the  mass.  The  blood,  and  after  it 
the  most  unstable  tissues,  thus  suffer  an  isomeric  modifica- 
tion which  unfits  them  to  discharge  their  normal  functions, 
and  often  induces  death.  In  the  instance  of  cholera,  espe- 
cially, the  albumen  of  the  blood  undergoes  a  transforma- 
tion which  makes  it  unable  to  remain  united  with  the 
water  that  keeps  it  fluid,  and  brings  about  its  coagulation 
in  the  vessels.  The  fatal  consequence  is  the  stoppage  of 
circulation,  respiration,  and  all  other  vital  actions.  Robin 
has  also  developed  very  forcibly  the  idea  that  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  virus,  but  merely  humors  grown  virulent, 
which  are  to  healthy  humors  what  common  and  noxious 
phosphorus  is  to  red  harmless  phosphorus,  and  we  know 
that  these  two  bodies  have  the  same  chemical  nature.  No 
doubt  the  secret  of  virulent  and  contagious  or  epidemic 
diseases,  so  numerous  and  so  formidable,  is  nevertheless 
still  undiscovered,  but  at  least  we  shall  now  know  the 
direction  that  it  is  proper  to  give  to  researches,  and  the 
true  meaning  of  those  that  may  be  made. 
5 


90  NATURE   AND  LIFE. 

The  case  with  morbid  humors  is  the  same  as  with  mor- 
bid tissues.  They  are  derived  from  healthy  humors  by 
similar  processes,  and  they  contain  no  principles  foreign  to 
the  system — only  they  are  produced  in  places  where  they 
should  not  be  produced,  and  in  a  proportion  which  ac- 
counts for  the  disorders  they  bring  on.  The  fluids  of  the 
various  dropsies,  for  instance,  proceed  from  hypergenesis 
of  normal  serous  products,  which  are  extracted  from  the 
blood  by  serous  membranes,  such  as  the  pleura  and  the 
peritoneum.  Pus  is  formed  by  a  blastema  issuing  from  the 
subcutaneous  cellular  tissue,  and  within  which  the  white 
globules  originate.1  The  contents  of  the  various  liquid 
cysts  are  similarly  produced  at  the  expense  of  the  blood- 
plasma  by  a  true  hypersecretion.  These  morbid  humors 
do  not  rid  the  system  of  some  subtile  and  noxious  principle, 
as  it  used  to  be  taught ;  they  form  under  the  effect  of  an  al- 
teration of  the  blood,  of  some  disturbance  of  circulation,  or 
of  irregularity  in  the  acts  either  of  secretion  or  of  excretion. 

Ancient  physiology  and  ancient  medicine  have  by 
turns  preached  solidism  and  humorism,  that  is  to  say,  the 
exclusive  predominance  either  of  the  solids  or  of  the 
fluids,  in  the  effecting  of  vital  phenomena.  Neither  of 
these  systems  is  sustained  by  facts.  The  tissues  and  the 
humors  play  equally  active  and  important  parts  in  the  or- 
ganism, and  disease  has  its  source  in  the  alterations  which 
occur  in  the  latter,  as  well  as  in  disturbances  affecting  the 

1  Some  authors  who  had  heretofore  believed  that  globules  of  pus  grow 
by  proliferation  out  of  the  elements  of  the  tissue  called  the  conjunctive, 
have  of  late  found  themselves  obliged  to  give  up  that  explanation, 
which  conformed  too  to  the  cellular  theory,  and  they  have  adopted  an- 
other extremely  ingenious  one,  which  consists  in  assuming  that  these 
globules  come  from  the  blood,  without,  however,  having  ever  proved  how 
they  are  produced  in  that  blood.  Besides,  they  forget  too  to  explain 
how,  in  certain  cases,  collections  of  pus  form  in  which  there  are  five  or 
six  times  as  many  leucocytes  as  there  were  in  the  whole  mass  of  blood 
that  served  to  form  them. 


THE  GENERAL  CONSTITUTION   OF  LIVING  BEINGS.     91 

former.  In  other  words,  there  are  diseases  of  humors,  dis- 
eases of  tissues,  and  diseases  of  anatomical  elements ;  but 
this  diversity  vanishes  when  we  ascend  to  the  common 
cause  of  all  morbid  phenomena,  when  we  descry  the  efficient 
and  inmost  source  of  the  disturbances,  that  is,  the  quanti- 
tative or  qualitative  modification  of  the  immediate  prin- 
ciples. Thus  we  come  back  to  our  starting-point,  and  find 
at  the  end  of  our  study  the  proofs  of  the  interest  con- 
nected with  the  subject  of  its  beginning.  In  fact,  real  and 
positive  experimental  medicine  sets  out  from  normal  im- 
mediate principles,  and  rises  by  successive  degrees  from 
the  knowledge  of  these  to  the  understanding  of  anatomi- 
cal elements,  tissues,  humors,  organs,  systems.  It  begins 
with  those  immediate  principles  that  are  toxic,  disease- 
producing,  and  medicinal ;  and  it  discovers  the  law  of  vari- 
ous pathogenic  irregularities,  as  it  does  that  of  healing 
effects.  All  the  animal  organs  and  all  the  liquids  of  the 
system  resolving  themselves  into  immediate  principles ;  all 
the  metamorphoses  of  health  and  disease  reducing  them- 
selves to  transformations  of  immediate  principles  ;  all  the 
effects  of  poisoning  or  of  healing  ending  in  the  action  of 
foreign  principles  upon  normal  principles ;  in  a  word,  the 
most  complex  acts  of  life,  whether  regular  or  disordered, 
being  explained,  in  the  last  analysis,  by  immediate  prin- 
ciples— we  may  form  an  idea  of  the  great  importance  of 
these.  The  instant  that  medical  researches  are  ruled  and 
guided  by  that  necessity  of  referring  facts  to  such  a  start- 
ing-point, the  instant  that  experiments  and  observations 
converge  toward  that  light,  every  thing  becomes  orderly, 
every  thing  finds  its  place,  every  thing  gains  significance. 
Uncertainties  vanish.  Science  advances  with  regularity, 
and  practice  with  assurance.  In  this  manner  general  anat- 
omy exerts  an  influence  of  a  constant  and  wholesome  kind 
upon  the  increasingly  rapid  progress  of  medicine  properly 
so  called. 


92  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 


IV. 

What  has  gone  before  is  merely  an  exposition  of  facts 
and  phenomena  of  which  the  discovery  is  due,  in  almost  all 
instances,  to  the  use  of  the  microscope,  connected  with  the 
suggestions  of  a  superior  intellect.  The  great  majority  of 
the  public  knows  Robin  only  in  this  way,  and  readily  as- 
sumes that  all  the  merit  of  that  savant  consists  in  his  labors 
in  micrography.  It  pictures  him  as  a  man  inured  to  tedious 
and  minute  details,  not  rising  above  them,  leaving  the  eye- 
piece of  his  instrument  only  on  compulsion,  with  little  heed 
for  philosophizing,  and  systematically  indifferent ,  to  doc- 
'trines.  In  fact,  many  micrographers  are  persons  of  that 
kind,  and  that  is  the  most  usual  effect  of  too  devoted  an 
intimacy  with  things  infinitely  little.  By  an  uncommon 
exception,  the  reverse  of  all  this  has  been  Robin's  fate. 
Persistent  attention  to  minute  and  tiresome  realities  has 
enlarged  his  mind,  while  enlightening  it,  to  such  a  degree 
that  his  works  have  contributed  as  greatly  to  the  advance 
of  ideas  as  to  the  progress  of  facts. 

Robin  cherishes  the  thought  that  biology  might  be  re- 
cast and  reformed  by  method,  that  is,  by  the  introduction 
of  severe  logic  into  studies  upon  life.  Borrowing  the  ideas 
of  Blainville,  Auguste  Comte,  and  Chevreul,  upon  this  diffi- 
cult subject,  adding  to  them  the  fruit  of  his  own  reflections, 
he  has  reduced  the  mass  of  biological  knowledge  to  sys- 
tem, in  a  manner  that  is  probably  definite  and  final.  He 
has,  in  part,  brought  into  it  the  same  order  which  is  em- 
ployed in  the  simpler  sciences,  in  chemistry,  for  instance, 
an  order  which  consists  in  beginning  with  the  most  element- 
ary, and  thence  ascending  to  the  most  complex.  Robin 
puts  at  the  foundation  of  biological  studies  the  immediate 
principles  which  are  the  starting-point  of  all  organization, 
being  also  the  most  simple  compounds  that  exist  in  the 
organism.  This  division  of  the  subject  bears  the  name  of 


THE   GENERAL   CONSTITUTION  OF  LIVING  BEINGS.     93 

stcechiology.  Afterward  comes  the  study  of  anatomical 
elements,  or  elementology.  These  elements,  formed  by  the 
bringing  into  contact  and  the  blending  cf  immediate  prin- 
ciples of  the  three  classes,  visible  only  under  the  micro- 
scope, and  showing  themselves  under  the  form  of  cells, 
fibres,  and  tubes,  are  endowed,  as  we  have  said,  with  ele- 
mentary vital  properties  :  nutrition,  generation,  evolution, 
contractility,  and  innervation.  The  science  of  the  humcrs, 
or  hygrology,  is  placed  at  a  higher  degree.  The  organic 
liquids,  in  fact,  are  formed  by  the  dissolving  in  water  of 
a  certain  number  of  immediate  principles,  and  they  hold 
anatomical  elements  suspended  in  them.  The  tissues,  the 
study  of  which  constitutes  histology,  are  more  complex. 
They  proceed  from  the  association  and  intertangling  of 
anatomical  elements.  With  the  exception  of  those  that 
are  called  products,  they  all  contain  several  kinds  of  ana- 
tomical elements.  Homwomerology  treats  of  the  systems 
formed  by  the  assembling  of  parts  identical  in  tissue  (the 
nervous  system,  the  bony  system).  In  the  higher  degrees 
comes  the  study  of  organs,  then  that  of  apparatus.  Such 
is  the  methodical  gradation  of  the  parts,  the  totality  of 
which  is  the  subject  of  anatomy.  If  we  add  that  these 
parts,  which  represent  the  different  complications  of  organ- 
ized matter,  may  be  studied  not  only  from  the  anatomical 
or  static  point  of  view  strictly  so  called,  but  also  from 
the  physiological  and  therapeutic  point  of  view,  that  is 
to  say,  in  their  course  of  action  and  in  their  relations  to 
the  media,  we  shall  have  indicated  the  complete  frame  of 
the  science. 

This,  for  Robin  and  for  most  biologists,  is  the  general 
constitution  of  biology ;  but  this  system  is  rather  a  plan  and 
a  method  than  a  doctrine.  We  do  not  learn  by  it  either 
what  life  is  in  itself,  or  what  notion  we  must  form  of  the 
regular  succession  and  the  concordant  connection  of  phe- 
nomena, the  dedication  of  organs  to  the  performance  of 


94  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

defined  acts,  the  permanence  of  types;  in  short,  all  the 
striking  and  remarkable  characteristics  which  give  so  dis- 
tinct an  expression  to  organized  beings.  These  questions 
have  been  handled  by  Robin  with  a  logical  exposition 
as  original  as  it  is  learned. 

Claude  Bernard  has  written  a  very  admirable  book,1  in 
which  he  expounds,  under  the  name  of  determinism,  the 
doctrine  which  establishes  the  indissoluble  combination  of 
all  the  conditions  necessary  to  production  of  the  phenomena 
of  life.  In  it  he  demonstrates  that  these  phenomena  are 
rigidly  fore-defined,  in  the  sense  that  they  are  produced  ac- 
cording to  fixed  and  unchanging  laws,  as  express  as  those 
which  govern  the  mineral  world,  and  that  no  intermeddling 
of  caprice  could  disturb  the  order  imposed  by  these  laws. 
For  the  illustrious  physiologist  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a 
vital  principle  any  more  than  there  is  a  mineral  principle, 
that  is,  an  entity  distinct  from  the  phenomena  themselves. 
Yet  he  admits  that,  from  the  moment  of  the  appearance  of 
the  earliest  elements  of  the  embryo,  the  evolution  of  these 
phenomena  does  obey  a  law  or  a  premeditated  idea,  gov- 
erning by  anticipation  the  phases  of  the  coming  existence. 
In  a  late  and  very  remarkable  work,a  Robin  has  unfolded 
ideas  quite  different  from  these.  The  distinguished  anato- 
mist, supported  by  the  views  of  modern  embryogeny  as  it 
has  been  established  by  the  Pr4vosts,  Dumas,  Coste,  Rei- 
chert,  and  Bary,  and  by  himself,  sees  in  the  harmony  and 
unity  of  the  organism  the  spontaneous  result  of  the  con- 
course of  those  energies  peculiar  to  each  anatomical  ele- 
ment. He  finds  in  it  the  necessary  consensus  of  the  un- 
conquerable tendencies  of  these  myriads  of  monads,  each 
having  by  itself  its  part  and  its  direction,  and  this  view  re- 
veals to  him  in  an  unexpected  light  the  solution  of  the  diflfi- 

1  "Introduction  to  Experimental  Medicine,"  8vo,  1867. 

2  "  On  the  Appropriation  of  the  Organic  Parts  and  the  Organism  to 
the  Accomplishment  of  Ordained  Actions,"  8vo,  1869. 


THE  GENERAL  CONSTITUTION  OF  LIVING  BEINGS.     95 

cult  questions  that  we  have  enumerated  above.  In  his 
view,  the  ordering  and  adjustment  of  the  parts  flow  from 
the  very  fact  of  the  gradual  formation  of  those  parts,  and 
of  the  properties  inherent  in  them.  He  shows  how  an  ex- 
planation is  to  be  found  in  the  simultaneous  operation  of 
properties  consubstantial  with  the  elements,  in  the  logical 
connection  of  generative,  evolutionary,  and  nutritive  acts, 
of  all  that  had  been  heretofore  attributed  to  the  presence 
of  a  so-called  vital  principle. 

The  hypothesis  of  a  vital  principle  which  coordinates 
and  rules  the  phenomena  of  life  seems  to  contradict  the 
fact,  in  this  sense,  that  it  is  in  the  first  place  impossible 
to  fix  the  exact  moment  at  which  this  principle  intervenes. 
We  have  the  ovule — that  is,  a  mere  simple  anatomical  ele- 
ment, containing  the  vitellus.  That  ovule  is  already  en- 
dowed with  life  while  it  is  still  dependent  on  the  ovary. 
By  an  uninterrupted  and  inevitable  chain  of  progress  other 
anatomical  elements  unfold  in  it,  in  an  ordained  sequence, 
from  the  moment  that  it  ceases  to  be  part  of  the  ovary 
until  the  moment  that  the  embryo  is  formed.  This  latter 
comes  forth  in  the  embryonic  dot  in  the  same  way  as  the 
vitelline  nucleus  does  in  the  vitellus.  Each  element,  by 
the  very  fact  of  its  existence  and  of  the  performance  of  the 
part  peculiar  to  it,  here  becomes  the  condition  of  exist- 
ence of  other  elements  necessarily  appearing  in  the  me- 
dium which  it  has  engendered,  and  conducting  themselves 
as  it  has  done.  Therefore,  at  what  instant  and  in  what 
way  could  a  vital  principle  intervene  in  this  series  of  en- 
genderings  ? 

It  being  known  that  the  whole  function  of  the  vitellus 
is  to  present  in  succession  those  conditions  required  for  the 
genesis  of  the  different  elements  of  the  embryo,  and  that 
these  are  parts  of  one  whole  process,  it  is  plain  that,  if  one 
of  the  acts  of  development  be  hindered  or  modified,  it  will 
no  longer  go  on  in  a  regular  manner.  Experience  entirely 


96  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

confirms  this.  The  slightest  causes,  the  least  deviations, 
whether  spontaneous  or  occasioned,  in  the  arrangement  of 
the  blastodermic  or  the  embryonic  cells,  endanger  the 
regular  growth  of  the  new  individual,  by  inducing  either 
the  production  of  monstrosities  or  the  death  of  the  germ. 
When  that  is  checked  in  its  evolution,  its  natural  envelopes 
continue  theirs,  and  we  find  the  growth  of  what  is  called 
a  mole.  In  fact,  the  idea  must  be  clearly  fixed  that  the 
cells  we  have  been  speaking  of  have  absolutely  only  a  sin- 
gle function  and  a  single  power:  that  of  providing  the 
conditions  required  for  the  growth  of  the  earliest  organs 
of  the  embryo,  namely,  the  dorsal  and  ventral  layers. 
These  layers  are,  in  their  turn,  the  starting-point  for  the 
dorsal  cord,  which  ends  in  the  appearance  of  the  two  halves 
of  the  central  nerve-axis.  Then  come,  after  the  vertebral 
cartilages,  the  eyes  and  auditory  vesicles,  the  heart,  the 
veins,  the  blood,  etc.  Every  one  of  these  organs  becomes, 
on  making  its  appearance,  the  cause  of  the  generation  of 
the  next,  so  that,  if  any  circumstance  disturbs  or  puts  an 
end  to  the  production  or  the  development  of  the  former, 
the  latter  either  does  not  show  itself,  or  else  comes  out  as 
a  monstrosity.  In  the  case  of  trout,  salmon,  and  pike, 
seventy  or  eighty  per  cent,  of  the  eggs,  artificially  fertilized, 
die.  Lereboullet,  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  this  inves- 
tigation, also  points  out  that  out  of  a  hundred  eggs  hatched 
the  number  of  monsters  produced  varies  between  two  and 
five.  The  human  being  is  subject  to  the  same  accidents. 
In  three  thousand  births,  there  are  always  at  least  two 
hundred  still-born  in  Paris  and  half  as  many  in  the  rest  of 
France,  and  among  a  hundred  still-born  an  average  is  found 
of  one  monster  not  viable.  Independently  of  the  still-born, 
we  find  in  the  human  race  a  number  of  congenital  anoma- 
lies, which,  though  they  do  not  threaten  life,  do  often 
shorten  it  and  make  it  difficult,  by  interfering  with  the 
regular  exercise  of  its  functions.  Cretinism,  idiocy,  deaf- 


THE   GENERAL  CONSTITUTION  OF  LIVING  BEINGS.     97 

and-dumbness,  hydrocephale,  double  spine,  extrophy  of  the 
bladder,  imperforate  state  or  absence  of  the  latter  vessel, 
anomalies  of  the  heart,  the  genital  organs,  etc.,  are  thus 
irregular  actions  of  the  power  of  evolution  as  common  as 
they  are  painful. 

These  facts  seem  to  prove  the  futility  of  that  hypothe- 
sis of  a  moulding  principle  controlling  the  ovule  and  the 
embryo,  and  fashioning  them  after  its  will,  in  conformity 
with  a  premeditated  law.  They  prove  too  that  the  birth 
of  the  new  being  consists  in  a  series  of  births  upon  births, 
instead  of  being  effected,  as  some  naturalists  have  sup- 
posed, by  the  successive  transformation  of  parts  pree'xist- 
ing  in  the  ovule.  That  doctrine  of  the  encasement  of 
germs,  or  of  syngenetic  preformation,  by  which  it  is  con- 
ceded that  the  germs  of  all  coming  generations  were  con- 
tained in  one  primordial  egg,  that  is  to  say,  that  the  ovule 
contains  potentially  every  thing  that  will  exist  later  in  the 
organism — that  theory,  maintained  by  Leibnitz,  Kant,  and 
several  other  philosophers  and  naturalists,  seems  therefore 
to  be  in  opposition  to  observations  on  the  production  of 
the  embryo. 

Very  clearly  the  phenomena  of  evolution  and  of  organ- 
ization are  subject  to  a  law  which  is  expressed  by  the 
limits  "fixed  to  evolution,  and  by  the  form  fixed  for  the  or- 
gans. This  law  is  not  invariable,  as  the  study  of  diseases 
and  of  monstrosities  shows ;  and,  even  if  it  were  so,  noth- 
ing gives  authority  for  supposing  that  it  has  an  origin  an- 
terior or  exterior  to  living  beings,  any  more  than  for  in- 
ferring it  from  the  mechanism  of  atoms.  Very  clearly,  in 
the  succession  of  anatomical  growths,  there  is  a  gradual 
creation,  and  in  the  series  of  physiological  functions  there 
is  a  distinct  direction;  but  what  boldness  it  is  to  infer 
thence  the  existence  of  a  creating  idea  and  of  a  directing 
idea  !  Have  we  any  right  thus  to  assign  objective  reality 
to  the  abstractions  of  our  mind  ?  Besides,  in  what  man- 


98  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

ner,  and  by  what  mode  of  comparison  with  known  things, 
could  we  represent  the  influence  of  such  ideas  upon  organic 
materials  ?  The  intrinsic,  sufficient,  and  determining  cause 
of  vital  phenomena,  we  are  forced  to  confess,  after  the  dem- 
onstration Robin  gives  of  them,  lies  in  the  properties 
themselves  of  organized  substance.  These  phenomena  are 
equations  of  a  very  high  order,  infinitely  complicated  for- 
mulas, of  which  these  properties  are  the  first  factors,  which 
we  cannot  reduce.  In  a  word,  anatomical  elements  have  in 
themselves  their  principles  of  action  and  direction,  exactly 
as  the  mineral  molecules  which  form  crystals  have  in  them- 
selves the  principle  of  the  harmony  which  they  produce. 
The  external  form,  that  is  to  say,  the  contour,  just  as  the 
internal  form,  that  is,  the  organization,  is  the  consequence 
of  spontaneous  principles  of  energy  peculiar  to  the  ultimate 
particles  of  life.  As  to  the  principle  of  these  principles, 
their  first  cause,  impenetrable  darkness  hides  it  from  our 
sight. 

No  doubt,  when  we  cast  the  first  glance  on  the  totality 
of  animated  beings,  it  is  with  difficulty  that  we  resist  the 
thought  that  a  breath  as  intelligent-  as  mighty  has  com- 
municated itself  to  them,  impregnates,  vivifies,  and  urges 
them  in  a  course  of  which  it  knows  the  end  (inens  agitat 
molem).  Seeing  the  most  perfect  and  delicate  organs  grow 
out  of  a  coarse  and  shapeless-looking  pulp,  we  are  almost 
irresistibly  driven  to  look  on  high  for  the  workman  of  that 
amazing  fabrication.  But  if  the  mind  be  ever  so  little  pene- 
trating, it  must  soon  give  up  its  first  momentary  illusion  in 
presence  of  the  testimony  of  facts.  If  it  takes  the  trouble 
to  go  to  the  bottom  of  things,  and  to  exhaust  their  details ; 
if  it  chooses  to  follow  step  by  step  the  development  of  life 
in  the  ovule  and  the  embryo,  to  study  the  functions  of  the 
system,  in  healthy  animals  and  in  diseased  animals,  it  will 
recognize  the  spontaneity  and  the  activity  of  the  natural 
forces  acting  in  themselves  and  by  themselves  in  eternal 


THE  GENERAL  CONSTITUTION  OF  LIVING  BEINGS.     99 

continuous  movement.  The  clear  perception  of  faint  and 
commencing  activities  rising  to  the  condition  of  harmonious 
systems,  and  unfolding  into  productive  energies,  will  be  a 
complete  revelation  to  it.  This  new  mode  of  regarding 
things,  by  which  we  set  out  from  the  small,  the  imperfect, 
and  the  relative,  to  reach  the  great,  the  perfect,  and  the 
absolute,  will  seem  like  a  reminder  of  the  philosophy  of 
Leibnitz.  The  especial  virtues  of  elementary  corpuscles 
engendering  a  whole  superior  to  them,  by  those  very  vir- 
tues, will  recall  to  the  mind  his  monadology.  It  will  con- 
ceive of  unity  in  combination  and  not  in  confusion.  All 
that  is  and  lives  on  the  surface  of  our  planet  will  rise  be- 
fore it  in  distinct  vision  as  the  result  of  numberless  and 
complicated  groupings  of  simple  phenomena,  in  which  the 
consubstantiality  of  form  and  of  force  is  manifest.  "  In 
eternal  despair  of  knowing  either  the  beginning  or  the 
end,"  as  Pascal  says,  the  mind  will  be  content  with  grasp- 
ing the  most  certain  and  denned  appearances.  By  no 
means  dogmatic,  equally  impotent  to  understand,  in  either 
case,  in  what  way  life  and  thought  can  proceed  from  an 
aggregation  of  atoms,  or  from  a  supernatural  cause,  it  will 
hold  itself  wisely  balanced  as  regards  these  formidable 
problems.  This,  at  least,  is  the  last  lesson  and  the  posi- 
tive command  of  experimental  science.1 

Science  has,  at  any  rate,  revealed  many  secrets  to  us. 
To  show  organic  matter,  shapeless  and  rudimentary  in  the 
blastemas,  combining,  organizing,  evolving,  and  ordering 
itself  in  a  thousand  ways ;  to  form  by  successive  degrees 
anatomical  elements,  humors,  tissues,  and  organs  ;  to  point 
out  the  elementary  and  irreducible  properties,  linking, 
mingling,  working  in,  to  effect  by  their  spring  the  accom- 
plishment of  thje  highest  operations;  to  display  the  con- 
nection of  all  the  acts  taking  place  in  the  development  of 

1  The  reader  is  reminded  that  this  was  written  at  the  beginning  of 
1870.     Since  then,  my  mind  has  found  its  way  out  of  these  uncertainties. 


100  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

embryos  as  in  perfect  life ;  and  to  gain  a  glimpse  of  the 
mechanism  of  disturbances  of  every  kind — the  effect  of  this 
is  to  give  ample  gratification  for  the  present,  and  noble 
hopes  for  the  future,  in  regard  to  the  understanding  of  the 
animal  system. 


LIGHT  AND  LIFE. 

THE  organized  being  that  we  observe  on  the  surface  of 
the  globe  does  not  subsist  solely  by  the  nourishment  ab- 
sorbed, sometimes  in  the  form  of  aliment,  sometimes  in  that 
of  atmospheric  air ;  it  needs,  besides,  heat,  electricity,  and 
light,  which  are  like  a  secret  and  life-giving  spring  for  the 
world.  Its  organs  are  subject  to  the  twofold  influence  of 
an  inner  medium,  represented  by  the  humors  moistening  its 
tissues,  and  of  an  outer  medium,  composed  of  all  those  sub- 
tile and  fluid  agents  with  which  space  is  filled.  This  close 
interdependence  of  beings  and  of  the  media  in  which  they 
are  immersed,  too  plain  to  have  quite  escaped  notice,  yet 
too  complex  for  analysis  by  science  in  its  infancy,  has  been 
brought  in  our  day  under  piercing  and  methodical  investi- 
gation, yielding  results  of  remarkable  interest.  Light  es- 
pecially takes  a  part  in  this  combination  deserving  deep 
study.  Whether  organic  existence  in  its  simplest  expres- 
sion and  its  lowest  degree  be  considered,  or  whether  we  re- 
gard it  in  its  highest  functions,  the  influence  of  light  upon 
it  strikes  us  in  the  most  strange  and  unlooked-for  relations. 
Lovely  forms  and  vivid  colors,  the  hidden  harmonies  of  life 
as  well  as  its  dazzling  brightness  and  bloom,  alike  claim 
mysterious  connection  with  that  golden  mist  diffused  by 
the  sun  over  the  world. 

From  this  point  of  view,  modern  science  finds  reason  in 
the  simple  worship  paid  by  primitive  man.  It  helps  us  to 
understand  the  divine  honors  given  to  the  star  of  day 


102  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

among  the  earliest  civilized  nations,  and  the  pathetic  terror 
those  childlike  races  suffered  when,  at  evening,  they  saw 
the  crimson  globe,  that  was  the  source  for  them  of  all  power 
and  all  splendor,  slowly  disappear  in  the  horizon.  That 
pious  idolatry,  far  from  being  a  mere  utterance  of  gratitude 
for  the  wealth  of  fertility  scattered  by  the  sun  over  earth, 
was  a  homage,  too,  to  the  comforting  source  of  brightness 
and  joy,  revealing  the  natural  affinity  between  man  and 
light.  The  Vedas,  the  Orphic  hymns,  and  other  remains  of 
the  earliest  religions,  are  full  of  this  feeling,  which  appears 
again  in  many  poets  and  philosophers  of  antiquity,  Lucre- 
tius and  Pliny  among  others.  Dante,  invoking  so  often 
"  the  divine  and  piercing  light,"  crowns  his  poem  by  a 
hymn  which  more  than  anything  else  is  a  symbolic  descrip- 
tion of  the  supreme  brightness.  On  the  other  hand,  labor- 
ers, gardeners,  physicians,  unite  in  bearing  witness  to  the 
beneficial  effects  of  light.  Naturalists  and  philosophers, 
too,  in  all  ages,  impressed  with  the  power  of  the  sun,  have 
described  its  manifold  effects.  Alexander  Humboldt,  fol- 
lowing Goethe  and  Lavoisier,  often  notices  its  various  in- 
fluences. Yet  it  was  not  until  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  that  so  rich  a  subject  of  study  began  to  attract  se- 
rious experimental  research ;  and  such  'are  the  difficulties 
of  this  grand  and  complex  problem,  that  its  solution  is  only 
partly  reached,  in  spite  of  a  long  series  of  attempts.  Great 
deficiencies  remain  to  be  supplied,  and  many  vaguely-known 
points  to  be  cleared  up ;  nor  has  an  effort  even  been  made 
as  yet  to  systematize  all  the  groups  of  results  gained.  The 
latter  task  we  propose  to  attempt  here,  with  the  purpose  of 
showing  by  a  remarkable  instance  the  manner  of  evolving 
knowledge  through  the  power  of  the  experimental  method, 
the  sequent,  cumulative,  and  mutually-supporting  character 
of  well-conducted  experiments,  and  their  endless  wealth  of 
instruction ;  in  a  word,  the  process  adopted  by  eminent  men 
in  the  great  art  of  wresting  her  secrets  from  living  Nature. 


LIGHT  AND  LIFE.  103 

I. 

Plants  gain  their  nourishment  by  the  absorption  through 
their  roots  of  certain  substances  from  the  soil,  and  by  the 
decomposition  through  their  green  portions,  of  a  particular 
gas  contained  in  the  atmosphere— carbonic-acid  gas.  They 
decompose  this  gas  into  carbon,  which  they  assimilate,  and 
oxygen,  which  they  reject.  Now,  this  phenomenon,  which 
is  the  vegetable's  mode  of  respiration,  can  only  be  accom- 
plished with  the  assistance  of  solar  light. 

Charles  Bonnet,  of  Geneva,  who  began  his  career  by 
experimenting  on  plants,  and  left  this  attractive  subject,  to 
devote  himself  to  philosophy,  only  in  consequence  of  a  seri- 
ous affection  of  his  sight,  was  the  first  to  detect  this  joint 
work,  about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  He  re- 
marked that  vegetables  grow  vertically,  and  tend  toward 
the  sun,  in  whatever  position  the  seed  may  have  been 
planted  in  the  earth.  He  proved  the  generality  of  the  fact 
that,  in  dark  places,  plants  always  turn  toward  the  point 
whence  light  comes.  He  discovered,  too,  that  plants  im- 
mersed in  water  release  bubbles  of  gas  under  the  influence 
of  sunlight.  In  1771,  Priestley,  in  England,  tried  another 
experiment.  He  let  a  candle  burn  in  a  confined  space  till 
the  light  went  out,  that  is,  until  the  contained  air  grew  unfit 
for  combustion.  Then  he  placed  the  green  parts  of  a  fresh 
plant  in  the  inclosure,  and  at  the  end  of  ten  days  the  air 
had  become  sufficiently  purified  to  permit  the  relighting  of 
the  candle.  Thus  he  proved  that  plants  replace  gas  made 
impure  by  combustion  with  a  combustible  gas  ;  but  he  also 
observed  that  at  certain  times  the  reverse  phenomenon  seems 
to  result.  Ten  years  later,  the  Dutch  physician,  Ingen- 
housz,  succeeded  in  explaining  this  apparent  contradiction. 
"  I  had  but  just  begun  these  experiments/'  says  that  skill- 
ful naturalist,  "  when  a  most  interesting  scene  revealed  it- 
self to  my  eyes :  I  observed  that  not  only  do  plants  have 
the  power  of  clearing  impure  air  in  six  days  or  longer,  as 


104  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

Priestley's  experiments  seem  to  point  out,  but  that  they  dis- 
charge this  important  duty  in  a  few  hours,  and  in  the  most 
thorough  way ;  that  this  singular  operation  is  not  due  at 
all  to  vegetation,  but  to  the  effect  of  sunlight ;  that  it  does 
not  begin  until  the  sun  has  been  some  time  above  the  hori- 
zon ;  that  it  ceases  entirely  during  the  darkness  of  night ; 
that  plants  shaded  by  high  buildings  or  by  other  plants  do 
not  complete  this  function,  that  is,  they  do  not  purify  the 
air,  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  they  exhale  an  injurious  at- 
mosphere, and  really  shed  poison  into  the  air  about  us; 
that  the  production  of  pure  air  begins  to  diminish  with  the 
decline  of  day,  and  ceases  completely  at  sunset ;  that  all 
plants  corrupt  the  surrounding  air  during  the  night ;  and 
that  not  all  portions  of  the  plant  take  part  in  the  purifica- 
tion of  the  air,  but  only  the  leaves  and  green  branches." 

How  do  this  transformation  of  impure  air  into  pure  air 
under  the  influence  of  sunlight,  and  the  reverse  process 
during  darkness,  take  place  ?  Senebier,  the  countryman 
and  friend  of  Bonnet,  gives  us  the  answer.  Applying  to 
the  problem  the  late  discoveries  of  Lavoisier,  he  showed 
that  the  impure  air  absorbed  and  decomposed  in  the  day- 
time by  plants  is  nothing  more  than  the  carbonic  acid  thrown 
off  by  a  burning  candle  or  a  breathing  animal,  and  that  the 
pure  air  which  results  from  this  decomposition  is  oxygen. 
He  proved  besides  that  the  gas  released  by  vegetables  dur- 
ing the  night  is  also  carbonic  acid,  and  consequently  that 
the  respiration  of  plants  in  the  night-time  is  the  reverse  of 
that  in  the  daytime.  He  also  demonstrated  that  heat  can- 
not supply  the  place  of  light  in  these  processes.  Thus  the 
nature  of  the  phenomenon  was  explained,  but  it  remained 
to  be  learned  what  relation  exists  between  the  volume  of 
carbonic  acid  absorbed  and  that  of  the  oxygen  released. 
Another  Genevese,  Theodore  de  Saussure,  proved  that  the 
quantity  of  oxygen  released  is  less  than  that  of  carbonic 
acid  absorbed,  and  at  the  same  time  that  a  part  of  the  oxy- 


LIGHT  AND  LIFE.  105 

gen  retained  by  the  plant  is  replaced  by  nitrogen  thrown 
off;  and  supposed  that  this  nitrogen  was  furnished  by  the 
substance  of  the  plant  itself.  This  function  of  the  green 
portions  of  vegetables  is,  moreover,  performed  with  great 
rapidity  and  energy.  Boussingault,  who  has  made  some 
remarkable  experiments  on  this  subject,  filled  a  vessel  of 
water  with  vine-leaves,  placed  it  in  the  sun,  and  sent  a  cur- 
rent of  carbonic  acid  through  it ;  on  its  passing  out,  he  col- 
lected nothing  but  pure  oxygen.  It  is  calculated  that  a 
leaf  of  nenuphar  gives  out  in  this  way  during  the  summer 
more  than  sixty-six  gallons  of  oxygen. 

In  1848  Cloez  and  Gratiolet  contributed  new  facts. 
They  showed  that  aquatic  plants  follow  the  same  course 
during  the  day  as  others,  but  that  at  night  they  are  at  rest, 
and  give  rise  to  no  release  of  carbonic  acid.  They  proved 
the  powerful,  instantaneous  action  of  solar  light  on  vege- 
table respiration.  If  a  few  leaves  of  potamogefon  or  of 
nayas  are  put  into  a  gauge  full  of  water  saturated  with 
carbonic  acid,  as  soon  as  the  apparatus  is  placed  in  the  sun, 
an  immense  number  of  light  bubbles,  of  almost  pure  oxygen, 
are  seen  to  detach  themselves  from  the  surface  of  the  leaves. 
The  shadow  of  a  slight  cloud,  crossing  the  sky,  suffices  to 
check  their  disengagement  at  once,  followed  by  sudden 
activity  after  it  has  passed.  By  intercepting  the  solar 
beam  with  a  screen,  the  alternations  of  quickness  and  slow- 
ness in  the  production  of  gas-bubbles  may  be  very  plainly 
seen,  according  as  the  plant  receives  the  rays  or  not.  Wa- 
ter-plants show  other  interesting  peculiarities.  Diffused 
light  has  no  power  to  excite  the  production  of  carbonic 
acid,  unless  the  phenomenon  has  been  first  called  forth  by 
direct  sunlight.  Still  further,  the  solar  influence  having 
once  been  applied,  the  evolution  of  carbonic  acid  continues 
even  in  darkness.  The  vegetable  keeps  up  at  night  its 
mode  of  breathing  by  day.  The  living  force  of  solar  light, 
therefore,  can  be  fixed  and  stored  away  in  living  plants,  as 


106  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

Van  Tieghem,  the  discoverer  of  this  curious  property,  very 
well  remarks,  to  act  afterward  in  complete  darkness,  and 
exhaust  itself  by  slow  degrees,  through  transformation  into 
equivalent  chemical  energy.  It  appears  to  lodge  itself  in 
phosphorescent  sulphur,  to  reappear  under  the  form  of  less 
intense  radiations  ;  it  hoards  itself  up  in  paper,  starch,  and 
porcelain,  to  come  forth  anew,  after  a  greater  or  less  lapse 
of  time,  through  its  action  on  the  salts  of  silver.  The  pe- 
culiarity residing  in  these  green  cells  of  vegetables,  then, 
is  not  an  isolated  one :  it  is  a  special  instance  of  the  gen- 
eral property,  inherent  in  many  bodies,  of  retaining,  within 
their  mass,  in  some  unknown  form,  a  part  of  the  vibrations 
that  fall  upon  them,  and  of  preserving  them  through  trans- 
formation, to  be  afterward  emitted,  either  in  the  state  of 
luminous  radiations,  or  in  the  condition  of  chemical  or  me- 
chanical energy.  The  great  principle  of  the  transformation 
of  forces  thus  holds  good  in  the  vegetable  kingdom.  And 
we  end  with  the  remark  that  these  facts  of  persistent  ac- 
tivity, called  out  by  an  initial  excitement,  lend  support  to 
the  idea  that  living  forces  hold  a  close  connection  with  the 
molecular  structure  of  bodies,  and  may  even  be  the  deter- 
minate expression  of  that  structure.  We  cannot  conceive 
manifold  energy  in  a  mathematical  and  irreducible  atom ; 
but  in  a  molecule,  made  up  of  a  certain  number  of  atoms, 
we  can  fancy  dynamic  figures  of  a  very  complex  order. 

We  have  thus  far  regarded  only  the  action  of  white  light, 
the  effect  of  the  totality  of  rays  sent  us  by  the  sun ;  but 
this  light  is  not  simple.  It  is  composed  of  a  great  number 
of  radiations,  of  distinct  colors  and  properties.  When  white 
light  is  decomposed  by  the  prism,  we  obtain  seven  groups 
of  visible  rays,  of  unequal  refractive  power,  violet,  indigo, 
blue,  green,  yellow,  orange,  and  red.  The  spectrum  or  rib- 
bon of  colors  thus  obtained  widens  and  spreads  out  by  in- 
visible radiations.  Beyond  the  red,  there  exist  radiations 
of  dark  heat,  or  calorific  rays,  and,  outside  of  the  violet,  ra- 


LIGHT  AND   LIFE.  107 

diations  which  are  called  chemical  or  ultra-violet  rays.  The 
first  affect  the  thermometer,  the  last  occasion  energetic 
reactions  in  chemical  compounds.  What  is  their  influence 
upon  vegetation  ?  Does  solar  light  act  by  its  colored  rays, 
its  heat-rays,  or  its  chemical  rays  ? 

The  question  has  been  subjected  to  many  important  ex- 
periments, and  is,  perhaps,  not  yet  determined.  Daubeny, 
in  1836,  was  the  first  to  watch  the  respiration  of  plants  in 
colored  glasses,  and  he  found  that  the  volume  of  oxygen 
released  is  always  less  in  the  colored  rays  than  in  white 
light.  The  orange  rays  appeared  to  him  most  energetic ; 
the  blue  rays  coming  next.  A  few  years  later,  Gardner, 
in  Virginia,  exposed  young,  feeble  plants,  'from  two  to  three 
inches  long,  to  the  different  rays  of  the  spectrum,  and  ob- 
served that  they  regained  a  green  color  with  a  maximum 
rapidity  under  the  action  of  the  yellow  rays  and  those  near- 
est them.  In  one  of  his  experiments,  green  color  was  pro- 
duced, under  the  yellow  rays,  in  three  hours  and  a  half;  un- 
der orange  rays,  in  four  hours  and  a  half;  and  under  the  blue, 
only  after  eighteen  hours.  Thus  it  is  seen  that  the  highest 
force  of  solar  action  corresponds  neither  with  the  maximum 
of  heat,  which  is  placed  at  the  extremity  of  the  red,  nor 
with  the  maximum  of  chemical  intensity,  situated  in  the 
violet,  at  the  other  edge  of  the  spectrum.  Those  radiations 
which  are  most  active,  from  a  chemical  point  of  view,  are 
the  ones  which  have  the  least  influence  over  the  phenomena 
of  vegetable  life. 

Mr.  Draper,  at  present  a  professor  in  the  New  York  Uni- 
versity, and  the  author  of  a  very  remarkable  history  of  the 
"  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe,"  undertook  new  and 
more  accurate  experiments  about  the  same  time.  He  placed 
blades  of  grass  in  tubes  filled  with  water  which  was  charged 
with  carbonic  gas,  and  exposed  these  tubes,  near  each  other, 
to  the  different  rays  of  the  solar  spectrum.  Then,  measur- 
ing the  quantity  of  oxygen  gas  disengaged  in  each  one  of 


108  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

these  little  vessels,  he  proved  that  the  largest  production 
of  gas  occurred  in  the  tubes  exposed  to  the  yellow  and 
green  light ;  the  next,  in  the  orange  and  red  rays.  In  1848, 
Cloez  and  Gratiolet  discovered  the  singular  fact  that  the 
action  of  light  on  vegetation  is  more  powerful  when  it 
passes  through  roughened  glass  than  when  transmitted 
through  transparent  glass.  Julius  Sachs,  more  lately,  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  measuring  the  degree  of  intensity  of 
light-action  upon  aquatic  plants,  by  counting  the  number 
of  gas-bubbles  released  by  a  cutting  of  a  branch  exposed 
to  the  sun  in  water  charged  with  carbonic  acid.  He  thus 
observed  that  the  bubbles  thrown  off  under  the  influence 
of  orange  light  are  very  little  less  numerous  than  under 
white  light,  while  the  branch  put  under  blue  light  throws 
out  about  twenty  times  less.  These  experiments  are  deci- 
sive. Neither  the  chemical  nor  the  calorific  rays  of  the  so- 
lar beam  act  on  plants.  The  luminous  rays  only,  and 
chiefly  the  yellow  and  the  orange,  have  that  property.  To 
these  clearly-settled  results,  Cailletet  added  a  new  fact, 
that  green  light  acts  on  vegetation  in  the  same  way  as 
darkness.  He  assigns  this  reason  for  the  feebleness  of 
vegetation  bathed  in  green  light  under  the  shade  of  large 
trees.  It  is  true,  this  >  discovery  of  Cailletet  has  been 
warmly  questioned  recently,  but  it  has  found  defenders  too, 
Bert  among  others ;  and  we  shall  find  soon  that  it  harmo- 
nizes with  the  whole  system  of  the  actions  of  light  in  the 
two  kingdoms  of  life.1 

A  year  ago,  science  had  gone  thus  far,  when  a  very 
distinguished  botanist,  Prillieux,  published  the  result  of  a 
course  of  experiments  matle  with  an  entirely  different  pur- 
pose, and  taking  up  the  study  of  the  action  of  light  from 
a  new  point  of  view.  Resting  on  the  twofold  consideration 
that  the  distinctly-colored  rays  are  not  equally  luminous, 

1  Bert  ascertained  that  green  light  stops  the  motions  of  sensitive 
plants. 


LIGHT  AND  LIFE.  109 

and  that  those  of  the  greatest  illuminating  power  are  also 
those  which  act  with  most  energy  on  plants,  Prillieux  un- 
dertook to  examine  what  influence  will  be  exercised  on 
plants  by  rays  different  in  color,  but  known  to  be  equal  in 
intensity,  and  whether  this  influence  differs  in  the  case  of 
different  colors,  or  is  the  same,  provided  they  do  not  vary 
in  illuminating  power.  The  long  and  conscientious  re- 
searches of  this  experimenter  led  him  to  the  conclusion 
that  rays  of  different  colors  act  with  equal  force  on  the 
green  parts  of  plants,  and  produce  an  equal  release  of  gas, 
when  they  have  the  like  luminous  intensity.  He  holds 
that  all  luminous  rays  effect  the  reduction  of  carbonic  acid 
by  vegetables  in  proportion  to  their  illuminating  power, 
whatever  their  refrangibility  may  be.  If  the  yellow  and 
orange  rays  are  more  active  in  this  respect,  it  is  because 
their  luminous  glare  is  much  greater  than  that  of  the  ex- 
treme rays. 

The  luminous  rays  also  promote  the  production  of  green 
tissue,  the  green  matter  of  all  vegetables.  Gardeners 
blanch  certain  plants  by  raising  them  in  the  dark.  They 
thus  obtain  plants  of  a  pale  yellow,  spindling,  without 
strength  or  crispness.  They  are  attacked  by  a  true  chloro- 
sis, and  waste  away,  as  if  sprung  from  barren  sand.  The 
sun  also  aids  the  transpiration  of  plants,  and  the  constant 
renewal  of  healthy  moisture  in  their  tissues.  On  failure 
of  the  evaporation  of  moisture,  the  plant  tends  to  grow 
dropsical,  and  its  leaves  fall,  from  weakness  of  the  stem. 

This  love  of  plants  for  light,  which  is  one  of  the  most 
imperious  needs  of  their  existence,  displays  itself  also  in 
other  interesting  phenomena,  which  show  that  solar  rays 
are,  in  very  truth,  the  fertilizer  that  produces  color.  The 
corolla  of  vegetable  species  growing  at  great  heights  on 
mountains  has  livelier  colors  than  that  of  species  that  spring 
in  low  spots.  The  sun's  rays,  in  fact,  pass  more  easily 
through  the  clear  atmosphere  that  bathes  high  summits, 


110  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

The  hue  of  certain  flowers  even  varies  according  to  the 
altitude.     Thus  the  corolla   of  the   Anthyllis  vulneraria 
shades  down  from  white  to  pale  red  and  vivid  purple.     In 
general,   the  vegetation  of    open,   well-lighted   places  is 
richer  in  color  and  development  than  that  of  regions  not 
accessible  to  the  sun.     The  nelumbium  and  the  bougain- 
villoea  will   not  thrive   in  English    greenhouses,   though 
heat  is  abundantly  supplied  them,  but  they  unfold  com- 
pletely under  the  clear  sky  of  Montpellier.     Some  flowers 
originally  white  afterward  deepen  in  color  by  the  direct 
action  of  light.     Thus   Cheiranthus  cameleo  has  a  flower 
at  first  whitish,  afterward  yellow,  and,  at  last,  a  violet-red. 
The  Stylidium  fruticosum  has  petals  which  are  pale  yel- 
low at  first,  and  grow  pink.     The    CEnothera  tetraptera 
passes  through  white,  pink,  and  red  colors  successively. 
The  flowers  of  the  Gobcea  scandens  are  green  the  first  day, 
and  violet  the  next.      The  Hibiscus  mutabilis  bears   a 
flower  which  opens  at   morning  with   a  white   hue,  and 
grows  red  during  the  day.     The  flower-buds  of  the  Aga- 
panthus  umbettatus  are  white  when  they  begin  to  unclose, 
and  afterward  take  on  a  blue  tint.     If,  at  the  moment  of 
leaving  its  spathe,  the  flower  is  wrapped  in  black  paper, 
intercepting  the  light,  it  remains  white,  but  regains  its 
color  in  the  sun.     Edmond  Becquerel  remarked  that  if  a 
slip  of  red  flowering  crassida  is  allowed  to  bloom  in  a 
dimly-lighted  room,  the  petals  take  a  tint  half  yellow,  half 
pink,  at  the  base.     Exposure  to  sunlight  for  some  hours 
occasions  a  red  tinge  in  all  the  corollas  of  these  little  flow- 
ers.    If  some  parts  of  the  plant  are  protected  by  a  cover- 
ing of  blackened  paper,  the  flowers  thus  hidden  keep  the 
faint  color  which  they  had  in  the  dim  light  of  the  room. 
The  tints  of  fruits  in  the  same  way  develop  under  the 
healthy  action  of  daylight,  and  the  rule  extends  to  those 
principles  of  every  nature  which  give  taste  and  odor  to  the 
different  parts  of  the  plant. 


LIGHT  AND  LIFE.  HI 

Flowers,  fruits,  and  leaves,  then,  are  elaborated  by  the 
help  of  luminous  vibrations.  Their  tissue  holds  the  sun's 
rays.  Those  charming  colors,  those  fragrant  perfumes,  and 
delicious  flavors,  all  the  innocent  pleasures  the  vegetable 
kingdom  yields  us,  owe  their  creation  to  light.  The  subtile 
working  of  these  wonderful  operations  eludes  us,  as  does 
that  which  guides  the  fleeting  diffusion  and  thousand-fold 
refractions  displayed  by  the  imposing  spectacle  of  the 
dawn  ;  but  is  it  nothing  to  gain  a  glimpse  of  those  primal 
laws,  and  to  possess  even  a  twilight  ray  upon  these  mag- 
nificent phenomena  ? 

II. 

Light  exerts  a  mechanical  influence  on  vegetables.  The 
sleep  of  flowers,  the  bending  of  their  steins,  the  nutation 
of  heliotropic  plants,  the  inter-cellular  movements  of  chlo- 
rophyll, offer  proofs  of  an  extremely  delicate  sensitiveness 
of  certain  plants  in  this  respect.  Pliny  mentions  the  plant 
called  the  sunflower,  which  always  looks  toward  the  sun, 
and  steadily  follows  its  motion.  He  notices,  too,  that  the 
lupin  always  follows  the  sun  in  its  daily  movement,  and 
points  out  the  hour  for  laborers.  Tessier,  at  the  end  of 
the  last  century,  took  up  the  study  of  these  phenomena, 
and  inferred  in  a  general  way  that  the  stems  of  plants  al- 
ways turn  toward  the  light,  and  bend  over,  if  necessary,  to 
receive  it.  He  noted,  too,  that  leaves  tend  to  turn  toward 
the  side  whence  daylight  comes.  Payer  made  more  exact 
experiments.  He  tried  them  with  young  stems  of  common 
garden  cresses  grown  on  damp  cotton  in  the  dark.  These 
stems  have  the  property  of  curving  and  turning  quickly 
when  placed  in  a  room  lighted  only  from  one  side  or  in  a 
box  receiving  light  on  one  wall  only.  The  upper  part  of 
the  stem  curves  first,  the  lower  part  remaining  straight. 
By  a  second  movement  the  top  erects  and  the  bottom  bends 
over,  so  that  the  plant,  though  leaning,  becomes  almost 


112  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

rectilinear  again.  When  put  in  a  room  receiving  light 
from  two  windows,  the  following  results  are  noticed :  If 
the  openings  are  on  the  same  side  admitting  light  equally, 
the  stem  bends  in  the  direction  of  the  middle  of  the  angle 
formed  by  these  two  beams ;  if  one  of  the  two  windows 
admits  more  light  than  the  other,  the  stem  leans  toward  it ; 
if  the  windows  are  opposite  each  other,  the  stem  stands 
erect,  when  light  comes  equally  from  both  sides,  and,  if  it 
does  not,  turns  toward  the  stronger  rays.  Payer  discovered, 
moreover,  that  the  part  of  the  irradiating  light  most  active 
in  its  effects  corresponds  in  this  case  to  the  violet  and  the 
blue.  The  red,  orange,  yellow,  and  green  rays  do  not 
seem  to  produce  any  movement  in  plants.  Gardner  car- 
ried the  investigation  still  further.  He  sowed  turnips,  and 
let  them  develop  in  the  dark  to  two  or  three  inches  in 
length.  Then  he  threw  the  solar  spectrum  by  a  prism  on 
this  little  field.  The  plants  inclined  toward  a  common 
axis.  Those  exposed  to  the  red,  orange,  yellow,  and  green 
rays,  leaned  toward  the  deep  blue,  while  the  part  lighted 
by  violet  bent  in  the  opposite  direction.  Thus  the  crop 
took  the  appearance  of  a  wheat-field  bowing  under  two 
contrary  winds.  The  turnips  placed  in  the  violet-blue 
region  looked  toward  the  prism.  Gardner  thus  determined, 
as  Payer  had  done,  that  the  most  refrangible  rays  are  those 
which  effect  the  bending  of  the  young  stems.  He  proved 
also  that  the  plants  grow  erect  again  in  the  dark. 

These  experiments,  repeated  and  varied  in  many  ways 
by  Dutrochet  and  Guillemin,  uniformly  gave  like  results, 
but  the  phenomenon  itself  still  remains  almost  unexplained. 
This  remark  also  applies  to  the  very  singular  facts  of  the 
twisting  of  running  plants.  The  stems  of  these  plants,  in 
twining  about  their  supports,  usually  curl  from  the  left  to 
the  right.  Others  follow  the  contrary  course,  and  some 
twist  indifferently  in  either  way.  Charles  Darwin  inferred, 
from  his  investigation,  that  light  has  an  effect  on  this  phe- 


LIGHT  AND  LIFE.  113 

nomenon.  If  twining  plants  are  put  in  a  room  near  a  win- 
dow, the  tip  of  their  stalk  takes  longer  to  complete  the 
half-circuit  during  which  it  turns  toward  the  darker  part  of 
the  room  than  that  which  is  described  nearer  the  window. 
Thus,  one  of  them  having  gone  through  a  whole  turn  in 
five  hours  and  twenty  minutes,  the  half-circle  toward  the 
window  employed  a  little  less  than  an  hour,  while  the 
other  was  not  traversed  in  less  than  four  hours  and  a  half. 
Duchartre  placed  some  China  yams  in  full  vegetation  in  a 
garden,  and  others  in  a  completely  dark  cellar.  The  stems 
of  the  plants  uniformly  lost  in  the  dark  the  power  of  twist- 
ing around  their  supporting  sticks.  Those  exposed  to  the 
sun  presented  one  portion  twisting,  but,  when  put  in  the 
cellar,  they  shot  out  straight  stems.  Yet  some  twining 
plants  are  known  that  seem  to  be  independent  of  light  in 
twisting. 

The  sleep  of  plants,  in  connection  with  light  particular- 
ly, is  still  less  understood.  The  flowers  and  leaves  of  certain 
vegetables  droop  and  wither  at  fixed  hours.  The  corolla 
closes,  and  after  quiet  inaction  the  plant  again  expands. 
In  others,  the  corolla  droops  and  dies  without  closing.  In 
others  still,  as  the  convolvulus,  the  closing  of  the  flower 
occurs  only,  once,  and  its  sleep  marks  its  death.  Linnseus 
noted  the  hours  of  opening  and  shutting  in  certain  plants, 
and  thus  arranged  what  has  been  called  Flora's  clock ; 
but  the  relations  of  these  closings  with  the  intensity  of 
light  have  not  yet  been  scientifically  determined. 

The  green  coloring  of  vegetable  leaves  and  stems  is 
due  to  a  special  substance  called  chlorophyll,  which  forms 
microscopic  granulations  contained  in  the  cells  which  make 
up  these  stems  and  leaves.  These  grains  are  more  or  less 
numerous  in  every  cell,  and  it  is  their  number  as  well  as 
intensity  of  color  that  determines  the  tint  of  the  plant's  tis- 
sues. Sometimes  they  are  closely  pressed  together,  cover- 
ing the  whole  inner  surface  of  the  cell;  sometimes  the 
6 


114  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

quantity  is  smaller,  and  they  are  separate.  Now,  it  has 
lately  been  discovered  that  in  the  latter  case,  under  the 
influence  of  light,  the  green  corpuscles  we  speak  of  undergo 
very  singular  changes  of  position.  Some  twelve  years  ago, 
Boehm  noticed  for  the  first  time  that  in  certain  unctuous 
plants  the  grains  of  chlorophyll  gather  at  one  point  of  the 
wall  of  the  cells  under  the  action  of  the  sun.  He  remarked 
that  the  phenomenon  does  not  take  place  in  the  dark,  nor 
in  the  red  rays.  The  flat  sheet  made  up  of  a  single  layer 
of  cells,  without  epidermis,  which  composes  the  leaves  of 
mosses,  seemed  to  Famintzin  the  most  suitable  for  this 
delicate  kind  of  observations.  He  followed  the  movements, 
that  take  place  in  these  sheets,  by  microscopic  study. 
During  the  day  the  green  coloring-grains  are  scattered 
about  the  upper  and  lower  parts  of  the  leaf-cells.  At 
night,  on  the  contrary,  they  accumulate  toward  the  lat- 
eral walls.  The  blue  rays  affect  them  like  white  light ; 
the  yellow  and  the  red  ones  keep  the  chlorophyll  in  the 
position  it  takes  at  night.  The  order  of  activity  in  the  rays 
seems,  then,  to  differ  in  this  case  from  that  in  the  phe- 
nomena of  respiration.  The  researches  of  Borodine,  Pril- 
lieux,  and  Roze,  proved  that  these  movements  of  coloring- 
corpuscles  within  the  cells  occur  in  almost  all  cryptoga- 
mous  plants,  and  in  a  certain  number  of  phanerogamous 
ones.  The  lately-published  experiments  of  Roze  show 
that  in  mosses  the  grains  of  chlorophyll  are  connected  by 
very  slender  threads  of  plasma,  and  may  suggest  the  idea 
that  these  threads  are  the  cause  of  the  changes  of  position 
just  described.  Perhaps  there  is  some  real  relation  be- 
tween them ;  but  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  these 
movements  of  the  plasmatic  matter  inside  the  cell  take 
place  by  day  and  night,  and  that  light  has  no  marked  effect 
on  them.  The  green  particles,  on  the  contrary,  creep  over 
the  walls  of  the  cell,  a-nd  move  toward  the  lightest  part  as 
zoospores  and  some  infusoria  do. 


LIGHT  AND  LIFE.  115 

Biot  relates  that  in  1807,  while  at  Formentera,  em- 
ployed in  the  work  of  extending  the  meridional  arc,  he  de- 
voted his  leisure  hours  to  the  analysis  of  the  gas  contained 
in  the  swimming-bladder  of  fishes  living  at  different  depths 
in  the  sea.  The  oxygen  required  for  these  analyses  was  fur- 
nished him  by  the  leaves  of  the  Cactus  opuntia,  which  he 
exposed  in  water  to  sunlight,  under  hand-glasses,  ingen- 
iously applying  the  discovery  of  Tngenhousz  and  Senebier. 
It  occurred  to  him  one  day  to  expose  these  leaves,  rn_  a 
dark  place,  to  the  illumination  thrown  by  lamps  placed  in 
the  focus  of  three  large  reflectors,  used  for  night-signals  in 
the  great  triangulation.  He  threw  the  light  from  three  of 
these  reflectors  on  the  cactus-leaves.  The  eye,  placed  in 
this  concentration  of  light,  must  have  been  struck  blind, 
Biot  says.  The  experiment,  kept  up  for  an  hour,  did  not 
cause  the  release  of  a  single  gas-bubble.  The  glass  was 
then  taken  into  the  diffused  light  outside  the  hut.  The  sun 
was  not  shining,  but  the  evolution  of  gas  took  place  at  once 
with  great  rapidity.  Biot  is  a  little  surprised  at  the  result, 
and  concludes  that  artificial  light  is  impotent  to  do  what 
solar  light  can.  The  labors  of  Prillieux  and  other  contem- 
porary botanists  have  proved  that  all  light  acts  on  the  res- 
piration of  plants,  provided  only  it  is  not  too  powerful. 
In  Biot's  case  artificial  light  had  no  effect,  because  it  was 
far  too  intense. 

III. 

Lavoisier  somewhere  says  :  "  Organization,  voluntary 
movement,  life,  exist  only  at  the  surface  of  the  earth,  in 
places  exposed  to  light.  One  might  say  that  the  fable  of 
Prometheus's  torch  was  the  expression  of  a  philosophic 
truth  that  the  ancients  had  not  overlooked.  Without  light, 
Nature  was  without  life ;  she  was  inanimate  and  dead.  A 
benevolent  God,  bringing  light,  diffused  over  the  earth's 
surface  organization,  feeling,  and  thought."  These  words 


116  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

are  essentially  true.  All  organic  activity  was  very  clearly 
at  first  borrowed  from  the  sun,  and  if  the  earth  has  since 
stored  away  and  made  its  own  a  quantity  of  energy,  that 
sometimes  suffices  to  produce  of  itself  that  which  originally 
proceeded  from  solar  stimulus,  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  those  living  forces,  of  startling  and  complex  aspects, 
sometimes  our  pitiless  enemies,  often  our  docile  servants, 
have  descended,  and  are  still  descending,  upon  our  planet, 
from  the  inexhaustible  sun.  The  study  of  animal  life  shows 
us  by  striking  instances  the  physiological  efficacy  of  light, 
and  the  immaterial  chain,  it  may  be  called,  which  links  ex- 
istences with  the  fiery  and  abounding  heart  of  the  known 
universe. 

In  plants,  as  we  have  seen,  respiration  at  night  is  the 
reverse  of  that  by  day.  There  are  infusoria  which  behave, 
under  the  influence  of  light,  exactly  like  the  green  portions 
of  plants.  These  microscopic  animalcula  are  developed  in 
fine  weather  in  stagnant  water,  and  in  breathing  produce 
oxygen  at  the  expense  of  the  carbonic  acid  contained  in  the 
liquid.  Morren  saw  that  the  oxygenation  of  the  water  oc- 
casioned by  these  little  beings  varied  very  perceptibly  in 
the  course  of  twenty-four  hours.  It  is  at  the  minimum  at 
sunrise,  and  reaches  its  maximum  toward  four  in  the  after- 
noon. If  the  sky  is  overcast,  or  the  animalcula  disappear, 
the  phenomenon  is  suspended.  This  is  only  an  exception. 
Animals  breathe  at  night  in  the  same  way  as  in  the  day- 
time, only  less  energetically.  Day  and  night  they  burn 
carbon  within  their  tissues,  and  form  carbonic  acid,  only 
the  activity  of  the  phenomenon  is  much  greater  in  light 
than  in  darkness. 

Light  quickens  vital  movements  in  animals,  especially 
the  act  of  nutrition,  and  darkness  checks  them.  This  fact, 
long  known  and  applied  in  practical  agriculture,  is  express- 
ly noted  by  Columella.  He  recommends  the  process  of 
fattening  fowls  by  rearing  them  in  small,  dark  cages.  The 


LIGHT  AND  LIFE.  117 

laborer,  to  fatten  his  cattle,  shuts  them  up  in  stables  lighted 
by  small,  low  windows.  In  the  half-light  of  these  prisons 
the  work  of  disassimilation  goes  on  slowly,  and  the  nutri- 
tive substances,  instead  of  being  consumed  in  the  circulat- 
ing fluid,  more  readily  accumulate  in  the  organs.  In  the 
same  way,  for  the  sake  of  developing  enormous  fat  livers 
in  geese,  they  are  put  into  dark  cellars,  kept  entirely  quiet, 
and  crammed  with  meal. 

Animals  waste  away  as  plants  do.  The  absence  of 
light  sometimes  makes  them  lose  vigor,  sometimes  entirely 
changes  them,  and  modifies  their  organization  in  the  way 
least  favorable  to  the  full  exercise  of  their  vital  powers. 
Those  that  live  in  caverns  are  like  plants  growing  in  cel- 
lars. In  certain  underground  lakes  of  Lower  Carniola  we 
find  very  singular  reptiles  resembling  salamanders,  called 
proteans.  They  are  nearly  white,  and  have  only  the  rudi- 
ments of  eyes.  If  exposed  to  light  they  seem  to  suffer, 
and  their  skin  takes  a  color.  It  is  very  likely  that  these 
beings  have  not  always  lived  in  the  darkness  to  which  they 
are  now  confined,  and  that  the  prolonged  absence  of  light 
has  destroyed  the  color  of  their  skins  and  their  visual  or- 
gans. Beings  thus  deprived  of  day  are  exposed  to  all  the 
weaknesses  and  ill  effects  of  chlorosis  and  impoverishment 
of  the  blood.  They  grow  puffy,  like  the  colorless  mush- 
room, unconscious  of  the  healthy  contact  of  luminous  radi- 
ance. 

William  Edwards,  to  whom  science  owes  so  many  re- 
searches into  the  action  of  natural  agents,  studied,  about 
1820,  the  influence  exercised  by  light  on  the  development 
of  animals.  He  placed  frogs'-eggs  in  two  vessels  filled 
with  water,  one  of  which  was  transparent,  and  the  other 
made  impermeable  to  light  by  a  covering  of  black  paper. 
The  eggs  exposed  to  light  developed  regularly ;  those  in 
the  dark  vessel  yielded  nothing  but  rudiments  of  embryos. 
Then  he  put  tadpoles  in  large  vessels,  some  transparent, 


118  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

others  shielded  from  the  light.  The  tadpoles  that  were 
shone  upon,  soon  underwent  the  change  into  the  adult 
form,  while  the  others  either  continued  in  the  tadpole  con- 
dition or  passed  into  the  state  of  perfect  frogs  with  great 
difficulty.  Thirty  years  later,  Moleschott  performed  some 
hundreds  of  experiments  in  examining  how  light  modifies 
the  quantity  of  carbonic  acid  thrown  off  in  respiration. 
Operating  on  frogs,  he  found  that  the  volume  of  gas  ex- 
haled by  daylight  exceeds  by  one-fourth  the  volume  thrown 
off  in  darkness.  He  established,  in  a  general  way,  that  the 
production  of  carbonic  acid  increases  in  proportion  to  the 
intensity  of  light.  Thus,  with  an  intensity  represented  by 
3.27,  he  obtained  1  of  carbonic  acid,  and,  with  an  intensity 
of  7.38,  he  obtained  1.18.  The  same  physiologist  thinks 
that  in  batrachians  the  intensity  of  light  is  communicated 
partly  by  the  skin,  partly  by  the  eyes. 

Jules  Bdclard  made  more  thorough  researches.  Com- 
mon flies'-eggs,  taken  from  the  same  group,  and  placed  at 
the  same  time  under  differently-colored  glasses,  all  pro- 
duce worms.  But  if  the  worms,  hatched  under  the  differ- 
ent glasses,  are  compared  at  the  end  of  four  or  five  days, 
perceptible  differences  may  be  seen  among  them.  Those 
most  developed  correspond  with  the  violet  and  blue  ray ; 
those  hatched  under  the  green  ray  are  far  less  advanced ; 
while  the  red,  yellow,  and  white  rays  exert  an  intermediate 
action.  A  long  series  of  experiments  on  birds  satisfied 
Be"clard  that  the  quantity  of  carbonic  acid  thrown  out  in 
breathing,  during  a  given  time,  is  not  sensibly  modified  by 
the  different  colors  of  the  glasses  the  animals  are  placed 
under.  It  is  the  same  with  small  mammifers,  such  as  mice ; 
but  it  is  to  be  observed  in  this  case  that  the  skin  is  covered 
either  with  hair  or  feathers,  and  the  light  does  not  strike 
the  surface.  The  same  physiologist  examined  also  the  in- 
fluence of  the  differently-colored  rays  of  the  spectrum  on 
frogs.  Under  the  green  ray,  the  same  weight  of  frogs  pro- 


LIGHT  AND   LIFE.  119 

duces  in  the  same  period  of  time  a  greater  quantity  of  car- 
bonic acid  than  under  the  red  ray.  The  difference  may  be 
a  half  greater ;  it  is  usually  a  third  or  a  fourth  greater ; 
but  if  the  skin  is  afterward  taken  off  the  frogs,  and  they 
are  replaced  under  the  same  conditions,  the  result  alters. 
The  amount  of  carbonic  acid  thrown  out  by  the  flayed  frogs 
is  greater  in  red  than  in  green  light.  A  few  experiments 
tried  by  Be"clard  on  the  exhalation  of  the  vapor  of  water 
by  the  skin  show  that  in  the  dark,  temperature  and  weight 
being  alike,  frogs  lose  by  evaporation  a  half  or  a  third  less 
moisture  than  under  white  light.  In  the  violet  ray  the 
quantity  of  moisture  lost  by  the  animal  is  perceptibly  the 
same  as  in  white  light. 

Light  acts  directly  on  the  iris  of  almost  all  animals,  and 
thus  produces  contraction  of  the  pupil,  while  heat  pro- 
duces the  reverse  phenomena.  This  stimulus  is  observed 
in  eyes  that  have  been  separated  for  some  time  from  the 
body,  as  Brown-Se"quard  has  shown. 

Bert  lately  took  up  some  very  curious  experiments  on 
the  preference  of  animals  for  differently-colored  rays.  He 
took  some  of  those  almost  microscopic  Crustacea,  common 
enough  in  our  fresh  waters,  the  daphne-fleas,  remarkable 
for  their  eager  way  of  hurrying  toward  light.  A  number 
of  these  insects  were  put  into  a  glass  vessel,  well  darkened, 
and  a  spectrum  of  the  ray  then  thrown  into  it.  The  daphnes 
were  dispersed  about  the  dark  vessel.  As  soon  as  the 
spectrum  colors  appeared,  they  began  to  move,  and  gath- 
ered in  the  course  of  the  luminous  track,  but,  when  a  screen 
was  interposed,  they  scattered  again.  At  first  all  the 
colors  of  the  spectrum  attracted  them,  but  it  was  soon 
noticed  that  they  hurried  much  more  toward  the  yellow 
and  green,  and  even  moved  away  a  little  if  these  rays  were 
quickly  replaced  by  the  violet.  In  the  yellow,  green,  and 
orange  parts  of  the  spectrum  there  was  a  thronging  and 
remarkable  attraction.  A  pretty  large  number  of  these 


120  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

little  beings  were  remarked  in  the  red,  too,  a  certain  num- 
ber in  the  blue,  and  some,  fewer  in  proportion  to  the  dis- 
tance, in  the  most  refrangible  portions  of  the  violet  and 
ultra-violet.  For  these  insects,  as  for  ourselves,  the  most 
luminous  part  of  the  spectrum  was  also  the  most  agreeable. 
They  behaved  in  it  as  a  man  would  do  who,  if  he  wished  to 
read  in  a  spectrum  thrown  about  him,  would  approach  the 
yellow  and  avoid  the  violet.  This  proves,  in  the  first  place, 
that  these  insects  see  all  the  luminous  rays  that  we  see 
ourselves.  Do  they  perceive  the  colorific  and  chemic  rays, 
that  is  to  say,  the  ultra-red  and  ultra-violet  ones,  which  do 
not  affect  our  retina?  Bert's  experiments  enable  us  to 
answer  that  they  do  not.  That  physiologist  is  even  led  to 
assert  that,  with  regard  to  light  and  the  different  rays,  all 
animals  experience  the  same  impressions  that  man  does. 

Let  us  now  look  at  the  influence  of  light  upon  the 
color  of  the  skin  in  animals,  noticing  first  the  being  which 
presents  the  strangest  peculiarities  in  this  respect,  the 
chameleon.  This  animal,  indeed,  experiences  very  fre- 
quent modifications  of  color  in  the  course  of  the  same  day. 
From  Aristotle,  who  attributed  these  changes  to  a  swell- 
ing of  the  skin,  and  Theophrastus,  who  assigned  fear  as 
their  cause,  to  Wallisni£ri,  who  supposes  them  to  result 
from  the  movement  of  humors  toward  the  surface  of  the 
animal's  body,  the  most  different  opinions  have  been  ex- 
pressed on  this  subject.  Milne-Edwards,  thirty  years  ago, 
explained  them  by  the  successive  inequalities  in  the  pro- 
portions of  the  two  substances,  one  yellowish  and  the  other 
violet,  which  color  the  skin  of  the  reptile,  inequalities  due 
to  the  changes  in  volume  of  the  very  flattened  cells  that 
contain  these  substances.  Bruck,  renewing  these  researches, 
proves  that  the  chameleon's  colors  follow  from  the  mani- 
fold dispersion  of  solar  light  in  the  colored  cells,  that  is  to 
say,  from  the  production  of  the  same  phenomenon  remarked 
in  soap-bubbles  and  all  very  thin  plates.  Its  colors,  then, 


LIGHT  AND  LIFE.  121 

come  from  the  play  of  sunlight  among  the  yellow  and  vio- 
let substances  distributed  very  curiously  under  its  wrinkled 
skin.  It  passes  from  orange  to  yellow,  from  green  to  blue, 
through  a  series  of  wavering  and  rainbow-like  shades,  de- 
termined by  the  state  of  the  light's  radiation.  Darkness 
blanches  it,  twilight  gives  it  the  most  delicate  marbled 
tints,  the  sun  turns  it  dark.  A  part  of  the  skin  bruised  or 
rubbed  remains  black,  without  growing  white  in  the  dark. 
Bruck  satisfied  himself,  moreover,  that  temperature  does 
not  affect  these  phenomena. 

»  The  influence  of  light  and  of  the  surrounding  color  on 
the  tint  of  fish  and  shell-fish  was  long  ago  observed.  These 
creatures  change  their  shade  with  that  of  the  bottom  they 
live  on.  Georges  Pouchet,  a  late  student  of  these  phenom- 
ena, found  that  in  such  a  case  light  does  not  act  on  the 
skin  directly,  but  on  the  retina  of  the  eye,  which,  through 
the  great  sympathetic  nerve,  transmits  the  modifying  in- 
fluences of  luminous  vibrations  from  without  to  the  colored 
cells  of  the  epidermis.  Turbots,  for  instance,  placed  on  a 
white  and  a  black  bottom  alternately,  become  dark  or  light. 
But,  if  their  eyes  are  put  out,  they  do  not  change  color. 

All  animals  having  fur  or  feathers  are  darker  and  more 
highly  colored  on  the  back  than  on  the  belly,  and  their 
colors  are  more  intense  in  summer  than  in  winter.  Night- 
butterflies  never  have  the  vivid  tints  of  those  that  fly  by 
day,  and  among  the  latter  those  of  spring  have  clearer, 
brighter  shades  than  the  autumn  ones.  Night-birds,  in  the 
same  way,  have  dark  plumage,  and  the  downiness  of  their 
coverings  contrasts  with  the  stiffness  of  that  in  those  that 
fly  by  day.  Shells  secluded  under  rocks  wear  pale  shades, 
compared  with  those  that  drink  in  the  light.  We  have 
spoken  above  of  cave-animals.  What  a  distinction  between 
those  of  cold  regions  and  those  of  equatorial  countries  ! 
The  coloring  of  birds,  mammals,  and  reptiles,  peopling  the 
vast  forests  or  dwelling  on  the  banks  of  the  great  rivers  in 


122  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

the  torrid  zone,  is  dazzling  in  its  splendor.  At  the  north 
we  find  gray  tints,  dead  and  of  little  variety,  usually  close 
upon  white,  by  reason  of  the  almost  constant  reflection 
from  snow. 

Not  only  the  color  of  organized  beings,  but  their  shape, 
too,  is  linked  with  the  action  of  light,  or  rather  of  climate. 
The  flora  of  the  globe  gain  increasing  perfection  as  we  go 
from  the  poles  toward  the  equator.  The  nearer  these  beings 
approach  the  highest  degree  of  heat  and  light,  the  more 
lavishly  are  richness,  splendor,  and  beauty,  bestowed  on 
them.  The  energy  and  glory  of  life,  perfect  forms  as  well 
as  brilliant  arraying,  are  the  distinguishing  mark  of  the 
various  and  manifold  races  in  tropical  regions,  giving  this 
privileged  world  its  characteristic  aspect.  Nature  is  here 
grandly  imposing  in  the  radiance  of  her  virginity,  unsul- 
lied and  unsubdued  by  man's  presence  and  arts.  A  pure 
emanation  from  the  sun,  she  here  lives  wild  and  splendid, 
gazing  unshrinkingly,  like  the  Alpine  eagle,  on  the  eternal 
and  sublime  source  which  inundate  her  with  heat  and 
glow.  Look,  now,  at  the  region  of  the  pole !  A  few 
dwarfish  shrubs,  a  few  stunted  and  herbaceous  plants,  com- 
pose all  its  flora.  Its  animals  have  a  pale  covering  and 
downy  feathers ;  its  insects,  sombre  tints.  All  around  them 
are  the  utmost  limits  of  life — ice  invades  every  thing,  the 
sea  alone  still  breeds  a  few  acalephs,  some  zoophytes,  and 
other  low  rudimentary  organizations.  The  sun  comes 
aslant  and  seldom.  At  the  equator  he  darts  his  fires,  and 
gives  himself  without  stint  to  the  happy  Eden  of  his  predi- 
lection. 

IV. 

It  remains  to  note  the  relations  of  light  to  that  being 
most  sensitive  to  its  influence,  and  best  able  to  express  its 
effects,  man  himself.  The  new-born  child  seeks  the  day  by 
instinct,  and  turns  to  the  side  whence  light  comes,  and,  if 


LIGHT   AND   LIFE.  133 

this  spontaneous  movement  of  the  infant's  eyes  is  thwarted, 
strabismus  may  be  the  consequence. 

Of  all  our  organs  the  eye  is  the  one  that  light  especially 
affects.  Through  the  eyes  come  all  direct  notions  of  tke 
outer  world,  and  all  impressions  of  an  aesthetic  kind.  Now, 
the  excitability  of  the  retina  shows  variations  of  every 
kind.  Prisoners  confined  in  dark  cells  have  been  known  to 
acquire  the  power  of  seeing  distinctly  in  them,  while  their 
eyes  also  become  sensitive  to  the  slightest  changes  in  the 
intensity  of  light.  In  1766  Lavoisier,  in  studying  certain 
questions  upon  the  lighting  of  Paris,  which  had  been  given 
for  competition  by  the  Academy  of  Sciences,  found,  after 
several  attempts,  that  his  sight  wanted  the  necessary  sensi- 
tiveness for  observing  the  relative  intensities  of  the  differ- 
ent flames  he  wished  to  compare.  He  had  a  room  hung 
with  black,  and  shut  himself  up  in  it  for  six  weeks  in  utter 
darkness.  At  the  end  of  that  time  his  sensitiveness  of 
sight  was  such  that  he  could  distinguish  the  faintest  differ- 
ences. It  is  very  dangerous,  too,  to  pass  suddenly  from  a 
dark  place  into  a  strong  flood  of  light.  The  tyrant  Diony- 
sius  had  a  building  made  with  bright,  whitewashed  walls, 
and  would  order  wretches,  after  long  seclusion  from  light, 
to  be  suddenly  brought  into  it.  The  contrast  struck  them 
blind.  Xenophon  relates  that  many  Greek  soldiers  lost 
their  sight  from  reflections  off  the  snow  in  crossing  the 
mountains  of  Armenia.  All  travelers  who  have  visited 
the  polar  regions  have  often  seen  like  results  produced  by 
the  glare  of  the  snow.  When  the  impression  of  light  on 
the  eye  is  sudden  and  overpowering,  the  retina  suffers 
most.  If  it  is  less  powerful,  but  longer  continued,  the 
humors  of  the  eye  are  affected.  The  phenomenon  called 
sunstroke  results  from  the  action  of  light,  and  not,  as  is 
often  supposed,  from  excessively  high  temperature.  It 
sometimes  occurs  in  the  moderately  warm  season  of  spring ; 
or  a  very  intense  artificial  light,  and  particularly  the  elec- 


124  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

trie  light,  may  occasion  it.  The  violet  and  the  ultra-violet 
parts  of  the  sunbeam  seem  to  be  the  cause  of  this  action, 
for  screens  of  uranium  glass,  that  absorb  these  portions, 
protect  the  eyes  of  experimenters  occupied  in  studying  the 
electric  light.  This  disorder  is  a  true  inflammation. 

The  action  of  light  on  the  human  skin  is  manifest.  It 
browns  and  tans  the  teguments,  by  stimulating  the  produc- 
tion of  the  coloring-matters  they  contain.  The  parts  of 
the  body  usually  bare,  as  the  skin  of  the  face  and  hands, 
are  darker  than  others.  In  the  same  region,  country-people 
are  more  tanned  than  town  residents.  In  latitudes  not  far 
apart,  the  inhabitants  of  the  same  country  vary  in  com- 
plexion in  a  measure  perceptibly  related  to  the  intensity 
of  solar  light.  In  Europe  three  varieties  of  color  in  the 
skin  are  distinctly  marked :  olive-brown,  with  black  hair, 
beard,  and  eyes;  chestnut,  with  tawny  beard  and  bluish 
eyes ;  blond,  with  fair,  light  beard  and  sky-blue  ej~es. 
White  skins  show  more  readily  alterations  occasioned  by 
light  and  heat ;  but,  though  less  striking,  facts  of  variation 
in  color  are  observable  in  others.  The  Scytho- Arabic  race 
has  but  half  its  representatives  in  Europe  and  Central  Asia, 
while  the  remainder  passes  down  to  the  Indian  Ocean,  con- 
tinuing to  show  the  gradual  rising  heat  of  climate  by  deep- 
ening brown  complexions.  The  Himalayan  Hindoos  are 
almost  white ;  those  of  the  Deccan,  of  Coromandel,  Mala- 
bar, and  Ceylon,  are  darker  than  some  negro  tribes.  The 
Arabs,  olive  and  almost  fair  in  Armenia  and  Syria,  are 
deep-brown  in  Yemen  and  Muscat.  The  Egyptians,  as  we 
go  from  the  mouths  of  the  Nile  up-stream  toward  its  source, 
present  an  ascending  chromatic  scale,  from  white  to  black, 
and  the  same  is  true  of  the  Tuariks  on  the  southern  side  of 
Mount  Atlas,  who  are  only  light-olive,  while  their  brethren 
in  the  interior  of  Africa  are  black.  The  ancient  monuments 
of  Egypt  show  us  a  fact  equally  significant.  The  men  are 
always  depicted  of  a  reddish  brown  ;  they  lived  in  the  open 


LIGHT  AND  LIFE.  125 

air,  while  the  women,  kept  shut  up,  have  a  pale-yellow 
complexion.  Barrow  asserts  that  the  Mantchoo  Tartars 
have  grown  whiter  during  their  abode  in  China.  Remusat, 
Pallas,  and  Gutzlaff,  speak  of  the  Chinese  women  as  re- 
markable for  a  European  fairness.  The  Jewesses  of  Cairo 
or  Syria,  always  hidden  under  veils  or  in  their  houses,  have 
a  pallid,  dead  color.  In  the  yellow  races  of  the  Sumatra 
Sound  and  the  Maldives,  the  women,  always  covered  up, 
are  pale  like  tallow.  We  know,  too,  that  the  Esquimaux 
bleach  during  their  long  winter.  These  phenomena,  no 
doubt,  are  the  results  of  several  influences  acting  at  once, 
and  light  does  not  play  the  sole  part  in  them.  Heat  and 
other  conditions  of  the  medium  probably  have  a  share  in 
these  operations  of  color.  Still,  the  peculiar  and  powerful 
effect  of  luminous  radiation  as  a  part  of  them  is  beyond 
dispute. 

The  whole  system  of  organic  functions  shares  in  the 
benefits  of  light.  Darkness  seems  to  favor  the  preponder- 
ance of  the  lymphatic  system,  a  susceptibility  to  catarrh 
in  the  mucous  membranes,  flaccidity  of  the  soft  parts, 
swellings  and  distortions  of  the  bony  system,  etc.  Miners 
and  workmen  employed  in  ill-lighted  shops  are  exposed  to 
all  these  causes  of  physiological  suffering.  We  may  notice, 
with  regard  to  this,  that  certain  rays  of  the  solar  beam 
affect  animals  like  darkness;  among  others,  the  orange 
light,  which,  according  to  Bert,  hurts  the  development  of 
batrachians.  Now,  if  this  light  is  injurious  to  animals,  it 
is  not  so  to  plants,  as  we  have  seen.  In  exchange,  green 
light,  which  is  hurtful  to  vegetables,  is  extremely  favorable 
to  animals.  There  is  a  kind  of  opposition  and  balance, 
then,  as  respects  luminous  affinities,  between  the  two  great 
kingdoms  of  life.  White  light,  as  Dubrunfaut  says,  seems 
to  split  up  under  the  influence  of  living  beings  into  two 
complementary  groups,  a  green  group  and  an  orange 
group,  which  exhibit  in  Nature  antagonistic  properties.  It 


126  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

is  quite  certain  that  green  light  is  a  very  lively  and  health- 
ful stimulant  for  our  functions,  and  that,  for  that  reason, 
spring  is  the  favored  and  enchanted  season. 

The  correspondence  between  perfection  of  forms  and 
heightening  of  luminous  intensity  proves  true  in  the  hu- 
man race  as  in  others.  ^Esthetics,  agreeing  with  ethnog- 
raphy, demonstrate  that  light  tends  to  develop  the  differ- 
ent parts  of  the  body  in  true  and  harmonious  proportion. 
Humboldt,  that  nice  observer,  says,  speaking  of  the  Chay- 
mas :  "  The  men  and  women  have  very  muscular  bodies, 
but  plump,  with  rounded  forms.  It  is  needless  to  add  that 
I  have  never  seen  a  single  one  with  any  natural  deformity. 
I  will  say  the  same  of  so  many  thousands  of  Caribs,  Muy- 
cas,  Mexican  and  Peruvian  Indians,  whom  we  have  observed 
during  five  years.  These  bodily  deformities  and  mis- 
growths  are  extremely  rare  in  certain  races  of  men,  es- 
pecially among  people  who  have  a  deep-colored  skin." 
No  doubt  there  is  a  great  difficulty  in  conceiving  how  light 
can  model — can  exert  a  plastic  power.  Yet,  reflecting  on 
its  tonic  effect  on  the  outer  tegument,  and  its  general  influ- 
ence over  the  functions,  we  may  assign  it  the  part  of  dis.- 
tributing  the  vital  movement  orderly  and  harmoniously 
throughout  the  whole  of  the  organs.  Men  who  live  naked 
are  in  a  perpetual  bath  of  light.  None  of  the  parts  of 
their  bodies  are  withdrawn  from  the  vivifying  action  of 
solar  radiation.  Thence  follows  an  equilibrium  which  se- 
cures regularity  in  function  and  development. 

It  is  commonly  said  that  an  ordained  causality  rules  the 
operations  of  matter,  and  that  free  spontaneity  is  the  privi- 
lege of  those  of  spirit.  It  might  well  be  said  on  this  sub- 
ject that,  in  many  cases,  the  causes  acting  in  matter  elude 
us,  and,  not  less  often,  the  causes  which  act  in  spirit  over- 
power us ;  but  it  is  not  our  task  to  elucidate  that  terrible 
antithesis  of  law,  when  the  genius  of  Kant  failed  in  it. 
We  would  only  ask  it  to  be  observed  how  great  an  influ- 


LIGHT  AND   LIFE.  127 

ence  light  has  on  the  system  of  the  intellectual  functions. 
The  soul  finds  in  it  the  least  deceiving  of  the  consolations 
it  seeks  for  the  eternal  sadness  of  our  destiny — the  bitter 
melancholy  of  life.  Thought,  fettered  and  dumb  in  a  dark 
place,  springs  into  freedom  and  spirit  at  evening,  in  a  room 
brilliant  with  light  We  cannot  shun  the  sad  moods 
caused  by  gloomy  and  rainy  weather,  nor  resist  the  impulse 
of  joy  given  by  the  spectacle  of  a  brilliant  day.  Here  we 
must  confess  our  slavery — yet  a  slavery  to  be  welcomed, 
that  yields  only  delights.  And  why  should  we  not  join  in 
the  chorus  of  all  animate  and  inanimate  things,  which,  at 
the  touch  of  light,  quiver,  and  thrill,  and  betray  in  a 
thousand  languages  the  magical,  rapturous  stimulus  of  that 
contact  ?  By  instinct,  and  spontaneously,  we  seek  it 
everywhere,  always  happiest  when  it  is  found.  In  some 
sort,  it  suffices  us.  And  what  a  part  it  plays,  what  a  charm 
it  gives,  in  works  of  poetry  and  art ! 

This  is  not  the  place  to  unfold  that  attractive  and 
hardly-opened  chapter  of  aesthetics — to  demonstrate  the  re- 
lation between  the  atmosphere  and  art,  by  interrogating 
the  climates  of  the  globe  and  the  great  masters  of  all  ages, 
not  following  a  system  of  empirical  analogies  and  far- 
fetched suggestions,  but  led  by  strict  physiology  and  rigid 
optic  laws.  A  charming  picture  would  unfold  in  tracing 
the  countless  and  changeful  aspects  of  the  sky,  and  all  the 
caprices  of  light  and  air  in  their  influence  over  the  moral 
and  physical  nature  of  painters,  poets,  and  musicians.  The 
ever-varying  face  of  the  sun,  the  fires  of  dawn  and  sunset, 
the  opalescent  play  of  air,  the  shimmer  of  twilight,  the 
blue,  green,  shifting  hues  and  iridescent  gleams  of  sea  or 
mountain — all  these  things  find  a  destined  answer  in  the 
inmost  and  unconscious  ongrowings  of  life,  as  in  the  soul 
of  one  who  looks  understandingly  at  Nature's  works.  In 
it  they  reveal  and  transform  themselves  by  subtilest  thrills, 
tender  and  creative.  He  who  shall  detect  these — shall 


128  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

link,  range,  and  embrace  them  in  their  wonderfully  complex 
unity — will  render  a  great  service  to  science  and  to  art. 
He  will  not  make  the  artist  an  automaton,  nor  prove  man 
the  copy  of  a  plant,  drawing  all  its  virtues  from  the  soil  it 
springs  in,  but  he  will  lay  his  hand  upon  the  mechanism, 
as  yet  scarcely  guessed,  moving  a  whole  system  of  mighty 
combinations  of  energy. 


HEAT  AND  LIFE. 

THE  full  solution  of  the  question  of  heat  and  life  could 
only  be  reached  by  simultaneous  concurrence  of  physics, 
chemistry,  and  biology.  Ancient  physiology  treated  of  ani- 
mal heat  empirically,  but  was  unable  to  explain  its  origin. 
That  result  required  the  discoveries  of  Lavoisier  and  the 
more  modern  researches  of  thermo-chemistry.  After  re- 
vealing the  source  of  that  heat,  it  was  important  to  show 
how  it  was  disposed  of ;  and  this  is  taught  us  by  thermo- 
dynamics. And,  in  conclusion,  only  the  most  delicate 
physiological  experiments  could  settle  the  modifications 
that  take  place  in  living  beings,  when  subjected  to  the  in- 
fluence of  a  temperature  either  above  or  below  that  they 
possess  normally.  Medicine  and  hygiene  already  benefit  by 
the  indications  yielded  by  pure  science  upon  this  subject. 
It  is  admitted  that  the  study  of  the  variations  of  animal 
heat  in  diseases  is  of  the  highest  consequence  for  their 
comprehension,  and  that  both  diagnosis  and  prognosis  re- 
ceive unexpected  light  from  it. 

An  inquiry  into  calorific  phenomena,  undertaken  from 
various  separate  and  independent  points  of  view,  for  the 
solution  of  questions  that  seemed  at  first  sight  to  have  no 
mutual  connection  whatever,  has  thus  obtained  a  body  of 
truths  which  enter  into  combination  almost  of  their  own 
accord  at  the  present  time,  and  are  found  to  contain  the 
eecret-of  a  great  problem  in  natural  philosophy.  A  minute 


130  NATURE   AND   LIFE. 

and  extended  analysis  has  thus  resulted  in  an  instructive 
synthesis,  which  is  one  of  the  most  signal  acquisitions  of  the 
experimental  method. 


All  animals  have  a  temperature  above  that  of  the  gas- 
eous or  fluid  media  in  which  they  live ;  that  is  to  say,  they 
all  possess  the  faculty  of  producing  heat.  Warm-blooded 
animals  maintain  an  almost  constant  temperature  in  all 
latitudes  and  all  climates.  Thus,  in  polar  regions,  man, 
mammals,  and  birds,  mark  only  one  or  two  degrees  less  than 
they  do- at  the  tropics.  The  mean  temperature  of  birds  is 
41°  (cent.),  and  that  of  mammals  37°.  Those  animals  called 
cold-blooded  produce  heat  also,  though  in  a  less  degree ; 
but  their  temperature  follows  the  variations  of  that  of  the 
surrounding  medium,  keeping,  however,  a  temperature  a 
few  degrees  higher  than  it.  In  reptiles,  this  excess  varies 
from  5°  to  half  a  degree;  in  fish  and  insects,  it  is  still 
smaller ;  and,  in  the  wholly  inferior  species,  it  rarely  reaches 
half  a  degree.  In  fine,  with  animals  that  vary  in  tempera- 
ture, the  power  of  resistance  to  external  causes  of  refrigera- 
tion increases  in  proportion  to  the  perfection  of  the  organ- 
ization. It  is  observed,  too,  that  in  these  beings  vital 
activity  and  the  force  of  respiration  have  a  direct  relation  to 
the  thermometric  state ;  thus,  in  a  medium  of  7°,  lizards 
consume  eight  times  less  oxygen  than  at  23°.  With  ani- 
mals of  constant  temperature,  the  reverse  is  the  case ;  the 
colder  it  is,  the  more  active  is  their  respiration :  a  man,  for 
instance,  who,  in  summer,  consumes  only  a  fraction  over  an 
ounce  of  oxygen  an  hour,  in  winter  consumes  more  than  an 
ounce  and  a  half.  Apart  from  the  state  of  the  surrounding 
medium,  many  different  circumstances  exert  a  perceptible 
influence  on  animal  heat,  and  produce  tolerably  regular 
variations  in  it.  The  seasons,  the  times  of  day,  sleep,  di- 
gestion, mode  of  nourishment,  age,  etc.,  are  thus  constant 


HEAT  AND  LIFE.  131 

modifiers  of  intensity  of  combustion  in  breathing ;  but  there 
are  such  order  and  harmony,  such  foresight,  one  may  say,  in 
the  organization  of  the  system,  that  its  temperature  con- 
tinues definitively  nearly  the  same  in  the  physiological 
state. 

The  temperature  of  the  human  body,  at  the  root  of  the 
tongue  or  under  the  armpit,  is  about  37°  (cent.)  ;  this  figure 
expresses  the  mean  found  in  taking  the  temperatures  of  dif- 
ferent points  of  the  body,  for  there  are  certain  slight  varia- 
tions in  this  respect  in  passing  from  one  organ  to  another. 
The  skin  is  the  coolest  part,  and  the  more  so  the  nearer  we 
come  to  the  extremities.  The  temperature  rises,  on  the 
contrary,  with  increasing  depth  of  penetration  into  the  or- 
ganism: cavities  are  much  warmer  than  surfaces.  The 
brain  is  cooler  than  the  viscera  of  the  trunk,  and  the  cellular 
tissue  cooler  than  the  muscles.  Nor  does  the  blood  have 
the  same  temperature  in  all  parts  of  the  body.  The  labors 
of  Davy  and  Becquerel  established  the  fact  that  the  blood 
is  warmer  the  nearer  to  the  heart  examinations  are  made. 
Claude  Bernard  measured,  by  methods  of  equal  ingenuity 
and  exactness,  the  temperature  of  deep  vessels  and  the 
cavities  of  the  heart.  He  showed  that  blood,  in  passing 
out  from  the  kidneys,  is  warmer  than  when  it  enters,  and 
the  same  is  true  of  blood  passing  through  the  liver.  He 
ascertained,  too,  that  the  vital  fluid  is  chilled  in  going 
through  the  lungs,  and  consequently  the  temperature  of  the 
left  cavities  of  the  heart  is  lower  than  that  of  the  right,  by 
an  average  of  two-tenths  of  a  degree.  The  last  fact  clearly 
^proves  that  the  lungs  are  not  the  furnace  of  animal  heat, 
and  that  the  blood,  in  the  act  of  revivification,  grows  cool 
instead  of  warm. 

Ancient  physiologists  supposed  that  life  has  the  power 
of  producing  heat ;  they  conceived  of  a  kind  of  calorific  force 
in  organized  beings.  Galen  imagined  that  heat  is  innate 
in  the  heart — the  chemic-physicians  attributed  it  to  fer- 


132  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

mentations,  the  mechanic-physicians  to  frictions.  Time  has 
dispelled  these  errors  of  supposition,  and  it  is  proved  now 
that  the  heat  of  animals  proceeds  from  chemical  reactions 
taking  place  in  the  interior  of  the  system.  Lavoisier  must 
be  credited  with  the  demonstration  of  this  truth  by  experi- 
ment. As  early  as  1777  he  discovered  that  air,  passing 
through  the  lungs,  undergoes  a  decomposition  identical 
with  that  which  takes  place  in  the  combustion  of  coal. 
Now,  in  the  latter  phenomenon,  heat  is  thrown  off;  "  there- 
fore," says  Lavoisier,  "  there  must  be  a  like  release  of  heat 
in  the  interior  of  the  lungs,  during  the  interval  between  in- 
spiration and  expiration,  and  it  is  doubtless  this  caloric, 
diffusing  itself  with  the  blood  throughout  the  animal 
economy,  which  keeps  up  a  constant  heat  in  it.  There  is, 
then,  a  constant  relation  between  the  heat  of  the  living 
being  and  the  quantity  of  air  introduced  into  the  lungs,  to 
be  there  converted  into  carbonic  acid."  Such  is  the  first 
capital  fact  brought  to  light  by  the  creator  of  modern  chem- 
istry ;  but  he  did  not  rest  there.  He  undertook  to  examine 
whether  the  heat  theoretically  produced  in  a  given  time  by 
the  formation  of  a  certain  amount  of  carbonic  acid,  that  is 
to  say,  by  the  combustion  of  a  certain  quantity  of  carbon  in 
the  organism,  is  exactly  equal  to  the  amount  of  heat  devel- 
oped by  the  animal  in  a  corresponding  time.  This  quantity 
was  estimated  by  the  weight  of  ice  melted  by  the  animal 
placed  in  a  calorimeter.  Lavoisier  ascertained  in  this  way 
that  such  equality  does  not  exist,  nor  was  he  long  surprised 
at  this,  for  he  soon  discovered  that,  of  one  hundred  parts 
of  atmospheric  oxygen  absorbed,  only  eighty-one  are  thrown 
off  by  the  breath  in  the  form  of  carbonic  acid.  He  con- 
cluded then,  from  this  observation,  that  the  phenomenon  is 
not  a  simple  one,  that  a  part  of  the  oxygen  (nine  per  cent.) 
is  consumed  in  burning  hydrogen,  to  form  the  vapor  of  wa- 
ter contained  in  the  expired  air.  Animal  heat  must  be  ac- 
counted for,  then,  by  a  double  combustion — of  carbon  first, 


HEAT  AND  LIFE.  133 

then  of  hydrogen — and  respiration  regarded  as  throwing 
off  out  of  the  animal  carbonic  acid  and  vapor  of  water. 

Lavoisier's  experiments  have  been  repeated  and  varied, 
and  his  conclusions  discussed  in  many  ways  for  nearly  a 
hundred  years.  Several  experimenters  have  corrected  or 
perfected  some  points,  but  the  general  doctrine  has  not 
been  shaken  by  the  recognition  of  its  secondary  and  very 
subtile  difficulties,  several  of  which  still  puzzle  physiologists. 
It  is,  indeed,  undeniable  that  the  greater  part  of  the  reac- 
tions which  occur  in  the  system,  with  the  production  of 
heat,  do  bring  out,  as  a  result,  the  exhalation  of  watery  va- 
por and  carbonic  acid  from  the  lungs ;  but  these  two  gases 
cannot  arise  from  a  direct  combustion  of  hydrogen  and  car- 
bon, because  the  system  does  not  contain  such  substances 
in  a  free  state.  They  represent  really  only  the  close  of  a 
succession  of  transformations,  often  distinct  from  combus- 
tions, properly  so  called.  On  the  other  hand,  these  are  not 
the  only  residue  of  the  chemical  operations  performed  in 
the  vital  furnace.  Besides  the  water  and  carbonic  acid 
thrown  off  by  animals  in  breathing,  which  are  like  the 
smoke  of  this  elaboration  of  nutrition,  they  excrete  by 
other  channels  certain  principles  which  are,  as  it  were,  the 
scorias.  Now,  these  principles  of  disassimilation,  among 
which  should  be  noted  urea,  uric  acid,  creatine,  cholesterine, 
etc.,  could  not  be  results  of  pure  combustion,  and  they  de- 
note that  the  circulating  current  is  the  seat  of  extremely 
manifold  reactions,  the  laws  of  which  we  are  only  begin- 
ning to  gain  a  glimpse  of. 

The  latest  advances  of  chemistry  allow  us,  indeed,  to 
follow  the  linked  sequence  of  the  gradual  transformations 
of  nutritive  substances  into  the  cycle  of  vital  operations. 
It  is  well,  at  the  outset,  to  fix  exactly  the  seat  of  these 
phenomena.  They  take  place  in  all  the  points  of  the  sys- 
tem traversed  by  the  capillary  vessels.  The  glands,  the 
muscles,  the  viscera,  in  brief,  all  the  organs,  are  in  a  state  of 


134  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

constant  burning — they  are  every  instant  receiving  oxygen, 
which  brings  about  alterations  of  various  kinds  in  the  depth 
of  their  substance.  In  a  word,  every  organ  breathes  at  all 
its  points  at  once,  and  breathes  in  its  special  way.  Certain 
physiologists  of  the  present  day  are  wrong  in  localizing  the 
phenomena  of  breathing  in  the  capillary  vessels.  They  are 
merely  the  channels  of  transfer  for  oxygen,  which,  by  exos- 
mosis,  penetrates  their  thin  walls,  and  then  effects,  by  di- 
rect contact  with  the  smallest  particles  of  the  organized 
mass,  the  chemical  action  which  keeps  up  the  fire  of  life. 
It  is  easy  to  prove  this  by  placing  any  tissue,  lately  de- 
tached from  the  body,  in  an  oxygenated  medium.  We  re- 
mark in  this  case  an  escape  of  carbonic  acid,  together  with 
a  development  of  heat,  and  this  possibility  of  breathing 
outside  the  system  proves  clearly  that  such  act  can  be  ac- 
curately compared,  as  Lavoisier  thought,  to  the  combustion 
of  any  substance.  The  only  difference  is  with  regard  to  in- 
tensity. While  a  candle  or  a  bit  of  wood  burns  rapidly, 
with  a  flame,  the  combustible  materials  of  organic  pulp 
unite  with  oxygen  in  a  more  slow  and  quiet  manner,  less 
violently  and  manifestly. 

The  blood,  which  flows  and  reflows  incessantly  in  the 
most  slender  vessels  of  our  bodies,  and  charges  itself  full 
with  oxygen  every  time  the  chest  heaves,  is  composed  of 
very  various  substances.  It  contains  mineral  salts,  such 
as  chlorures,  sulphates,  phosphates  of  potassium,  soda, 
lime,  magnesia,  coloring-matters,  fatty  particles,  neutral 
substances  of  the  nature  of  starch,  and  nitrogenized  prod- 
ucts, such  as  albumen  and  fibrin.  The  salts  undergo  slight 
changes  in  the  torrent  of  circulation ;  they  are  eliminated 
by  the  chief  emunctories.  The  neutral  matters  of  the  na- 
ture of  starch  are  converted  into  glycogene  and  fat.  The 
fatty  particles  undergo  in  the  blood  only  such  oxidizations 
as  produce  certain  derivatives  of  the  same  order.  And, 
last,  the  nitrogenized  products  are  made  over  into  fibrin, 


HEAT  AND  LIFE.  135 

musculin,  ossein,  pepsin,  pancreatin,  compounds  all  differ- 
ing very  slightly.  It  is  the  first  portion  of  the  chemical 
process  which  is  effected  in  the  principal  fluid  of  the  body. 
All  these  materials,  elaborated  at  different  points  of  the 
circulating  current,  and  designed  to  be  assimilated,  are  de- 
stroyed in  the  very  organs  in  which  they  had  been  fixed. 
The  glycogene  is  transformed  into  sugar,  which  is  burned, 
yielding  water  and  carbonic  acid ;  the  fatty  acids  are  partly 
eliminated  by  the  skin,  and  partly  burned.  As  to  the  plas- 
tic matters  which  form  the  web  of  the  tissues,  we  know  lit- 
tle about  the  chemical  relation  which  connects  these  with 
their  products  of  destruction — urea,  creatine,  cholesterine, 
uric  acid,  and  xanthine.  Such  is  a  rapid  sketch  of  the  prin- 
cipal chemical  phenomena  which,  taking  place  throughout 
the  entire  system,  kindle  everywhere  an  evolution  of  more 
or  less  intense  heat.  There  is  no  central  organ,  then,  for 
feeding  the  vital  fire — every  anatomical  element  performs 
its  share;  and,  if  a  nearly  uniform  temperature  exists 
throughout  the  body,  it  is  because  the  blood  diffuses  heat 
regularly  into  the  various  parts  it  bathes. 

Now,  how  can  the  amount  of  heat  to  which  these  reac- 
tions may  give  rise  be  ascertained  ?  Lavoisier  arrived  at 
it  in  a  very  simple  manner.  After  comparing  the  oxygen 
absorbed  by  the  animal  with  the  carbonic  acid  and  watery 
vapor  thrown  off,  he  deduced  the  weight  of  the  carbon  and 
hydrogen  burned,  by  assuming  that  the  formation  of  car- 
bonic acid  and  of  water  produces  in  the  system  the  same 
amount  of  heat  that  it  would  produce  if  taking  place  by 
means  of  free  carbon  and  hydrogen.  This  is  very  nearly 
the  result  he  obtained :  A  man  weighing  132  pounds  burns 
in  24  hours,  at  the  average  temperature  of  Paris,  very  near- 
ly 11  ounces  of  carbon,  and  ^-£  of  an  ounce  of  hydrogen, 
and  thus  develops  3,297  heat-units.  During  the  same 
period  he  loses  through  his  lungs  and  skin  2f  pounds  of 
watery  vapor,  which  take  from  him  697  heat-units.  There 


136  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

remain,  then,  nearly  2,600  heat-units  to  account  for.  Other 
analogous  estimates  have  been  made,  and  physiologists 
have  deduced  from  them  the  conclusion  that  a  man  of  aver- 
age weight  produces  in  our  climate  3,250  heat-units  every 
day;  that  is  to  say,  a  sufficient  amount  of  heat  to  raise 
seven  gallons  of  water  to  the  boiling-point.  These  figures, 
though  approximations,  give  a  sufficiently  clear  notion  of 
the  power  of  the  animal  economy  to  generate  heat. 

Of  late  years  the  question  has  been  taken  up  again 
with  more  exactness,  thanks  to  the  views  of  a  new  science 
called  "  heat-chemistry,"  which  occupies  itself  with  chemi- 
cal phenomena  in  their  relations  to  heat.  Heat-chemistry, 
by  the  aid  of  very  delicate  apparatus  for  measuring  heat, 
ascertains  the  number  of  heat-units  developed  or  absorbed 
by  bodies  entering  into  combination,  beginning  with  the 
noted  experiments  of  Favre  and  Silbermann.  Berthelot, 
who  has  made  profound  researches  into  this  subject,  re- 
duces the  sources  of  animal  heat  to  five  varieties  of  trans- 
formation :  first,  the  effects  resulting  from  the  fixation  of 
oxygen  with  different  organic  principles  ;  then,  the  produc- 
tion of  carbonic  acid  by  oxidization  ;  then,  the  production 
of  water ;  in  the  fourth  place,  the  formation  of  carbonic  acid 
by  decomposition;  and,  last,  hydrations  and  dehydrations. 
The  learned  chemist  attempted  to  show  how  the  numbers 
obtained  in  the  study  of  the  heat  of  combustion  of  the  dif- 
ferent organic  acids,  alcohols,  etc.,  might  be  applied  to  the 
compounds  burned  in  the  animal  organism ;  but,  while  admit- 
ting the  theoretic  verity  of  the  analogies  he  establishes,  we 
cannot  refrain  from  remarking  that  their  practical  verification 
is  exceedingly  delicate  and  difficult.  How  can  we  measure, 
at  any  one  point  of  the  system,  the  heat  produced  by  a 
fleeting  reaction  occurring  in  the  inmost  depths  of  a  tissue 
that  must  be  lacerated  to  be  examined  ? 

If  thermo-chemistry  seems  not  to  throw  much  light  on 
physiology  on  this  side,  it  reveals  to  it  on  another  sources 


HEAT  AND  LIFE.  137 

of  heat  that  had  hitherto  escaped  notice.  Berthelot  shows 
that  carbonic  acid  in  the  system  is  not  always  formed  by 
oxidization  of  carbon,  but  sometimes  proceeds  from  de- 
composition .absorbing  heat.  We  know  that  alimentary 
substances  are  reducible  to  three  fundamental  types — fats, 
hydrates  of  carbon  (sugars,  fecula,  starch),  and  the  albumi- 
noids. Now,  the  fats,  in  decomposing  and  combining  with 
water,  as  it  occurs  under  the  influence  of  the  pancreatic 
juice,  evolve  heat ;  and  so  it  is  with  the  hydrates  of  carbon, 
independent  of  any  oxidization.  And  albuminous  sub- 
stances, too,  produce  very  clear  calorific  phenomena,  when 
their  combination  with  water  takes  place  with  its  conse- 
quent various  decompositions.  These  facts,  noted  by 
Berthelot,  must  have  their  place  in  the  minute  and  exact 
calculation  of  animal  heat,  which  it  is  perhaps  as  yet  too 
early  to  undertake.  At  any  rate,  this  heat  originates  in 
the  totality  of  those  chemical  transformations  which  are 
going  on  unceasingly  in  the  depths  of  the  animal  organs, 
and  are  bringing  about  the  continual  renovation  of  the 
whole  organized  substance ;  in  other  words,  nutrition ; 
but  why  that  nutrition — why  that  perpetual  production  of 
heat  in  the  living  machine  ? 

We  have  now  the  means  of  answering  this  question, 
which  involves  the  secret  of  one  of  Nature's  most  beautiful 
arrangements.  The  heat  produced  by  animals  is  the  source 
of  all  their  movements ;  in  other  words,  the  mechanical 
labor  they  perform  is  a  mere  simple  transformation  of  the 
activity  of  heat  they  develop.  They  do  not  create  motive 
force  by  any  voluntary  operation,  which  would  be  one  of 
the  prerogatives  of  life ;  they  draw  it  from  the  calorific  en- 
ergy stored  up  in  the  organs  traversed  by  the  blood.  Be- 
sides, there  is  a  fixed  relation  between  the  quantity  of  heat 
that  disappears  and  the  mechanical  labor  that  appears. 
Yet  it  is  to  be  remarked  that,  if  all  motion  by  living  beings 
is  a  transformation  of  animal  heat,  that  heat  is  not  wholly 
'  7 


138  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

transformed  into  motion.  It  is  partly  wasted  by  transpira- 
tion through  the  skin,  by  touch,  and  especially  by  radiation  ; 
it  is  used  in  keeping  up  to  a  constant  point  the  temperature 
of  the  animal,  subjected  to  many  causes  of  refrigeration. 

The  mechanical  labor  performed  by  an  animal  is  very 
complex.  Independently  of  visible  muscular  motions,  there 
are  all  the  changes  of  place  in  the  interior  organs,  the  con- 
tinual passage  of  the  blood,  the  contractions  and  dilata- 
tions of  a  great  number  of  parts.  Now,  these  actions  are 
only  possible  in  so  far  as  the  phenomena  of  breathing  are 
taking  place  in  the  active  region.  Prevent  arterial  blood 
from  coming  to  the  muscle,  that  is  to  say,  prevent  combus- 
tion taking  place,  and  consequent  heat  evolving  in  it, 
and,  although  the  structure  of  the  organ  suffers  no  harm, 
it  loses  its  contractile  power.  Mere  compression  of  the 
supplying  artery  of  the  muscle,  so  as  to  check  the  flow  of 
blood  in  it,  causes  the  organ  to  grow  cool  and  lose  its  power. 
The  labors  of  Hirn  and  Be"clard  have  clearly  established 
the  relations  between  heat  and  muscular  motion.  Later  ex- 
periments by  Onimus  have  fixed,  with  equal  precision,  the 
efficiency  of  heat  through  the  movements  of  circulation. 

We  have  said  that  the  heat-producing  power  of  ali- 
ments will  be  the  more  considerable  in  proportion  as  they 
contain  a  greater  quantity  of  elements  that  need  a  large 
supply  of  oxygen  for  their  combustion.  Therefore,  meat 
and  fats  repair  the  losses  of  the  system  much  more  speedi- 
ly than  vegetable  substances.  The  latter  are  suitable  for 
the  inhabitants  of  warm  countries  who  do  not  require  to 
produce  heat,  which  the  atmosphere  supplies  them  with 
abundantly.  The  inhabitants  of  cold  regions,  on  the  con- 
trary, whose  accessions  of  heat  ought  to  be  as  continual  as 
energetic,  are  urged  by  instinct  to  use  meats  and  fats,  which 
throw  out  great  heat  in  their  combustion.  For  instance, 
it  is  a  physiological  necessity  that  the  Lapps  should  feed 
on  the  oil  of  cetacea,  as  it  is  a  necessity  for  men  of  the 


HEAT  AND  LIFE.  139 

tropics  to  consume  only  very  light  food.  The  activity  of 
respiratory  combustion  and  the  kind  of  alimentation  thus 
vary  with  climate,  so  that  there  is  always  a  certain  propor- 
tion maintained  between  the  thermic  state  of  the  surround- 
ing medium  and  that  of  the  animal  furnace.  In  like  man- 
ner, in  the  same  climate,  persons  who  perform  great  mechan- 
ical labor  must  eat  more  than  those  who  put  forth  but  lit- 
tle movement.  This  fact,  long  ago  observed,  has  received 
of  late  the  clearest  and  surest  demonstration.  Yet,  per- 
haps, it  is  not  kept  sufficiently  in  view  in  the  management  of 
public  alimentation.  Many  examples  prove  the  benefit 
that  industry  would  derive  from  increasing,  in  all  possi- 
ble ways,  the  amount  of  meat  used  in  laborers'  meals. 
Quite  recently,  at  a  manufacturing  establishment  of  the 
Tarn,  M.  Talabot  has  improved  the  strength  and  sanitary 
condition  of  his  workmen  by  giving  them  meat  in  abun- 
dance. Under  the  influence  of  a  diet  almost  wholly  vege- 
table, each  laborer  lost  on  an  average  fifteen  days'  work  a 
year  through  fatigue  or  sickness.  As  soon  as  the  use  of 
meat  was  adopted,  the  average  loss  for  each  man  per  year 
was  not  over  three  days.  Often  enough,  it  must  be  owned, 
alcohol  is  only  the  workman's  means  of  remedying  the 
want  of  heat-producing  elements  in  his  food ;  a  deceitful 
remedy,  which  buoys  up  the  system  for  a  time,  only  to  sap 
it  afterward  with  alarming  subtilty.  One  of  the  best  pre- 
ventives of  the  abuse  of  alcohol  would  certainly  be  the 
lessening  of  the  cost  of  meat. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  relation  between  heat 
and  motion,  the  living  being  may  thus  be  compared  to  an 
inanimate  motor,  as  a  steam-engine.  In  .both  cases,  heat 
is  engendered  by  combustion,  and  transformed  into  me- 
chanical work  by  a  system  of  organs  more  or  less  com- 
plex. In  both  cases  it  is  at  first  in  a  state  of  tension, 
and  yields  motion  in  proportion  as  it  is  demanded  for 
the  performance  of  certain  work.  Only,  the  living  being 


140  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

is  the  far  more  perfect  machine.  While  the  best-made 
steam-engines  only  utilize  -^^  of  the  disposable  force,  the 
muscular  system  of  man,  according  to  Him,  accounts  for 
T^jAr-  On  the  other  hand,  the  animated  motor  has  this 
peculiarity,  that  its  sources  of  heat  and  its  mechanical 
arrangements  are  intimately  commingled,  that  its  heat  is 
produced  by  organs  in  motion  with  a  sort  of  general  diffu- 
sion, and  that  the  machine  itself  becomes  in  turn  trans- 
formed within  itself  into  heat ;  an  incredible  complication, 
of  which  science  has  succeeded  in  unraveling  the  simple 
laws  only  by  dint  of  the  united  efforts  and  resources  of 
physics,  chemistry,  and  biology. 

As  some  physiologists  hold,  heat  must  not  only  be  the 
source  of  motion  in  the  system,  but  must  also  undergo 
transformation  into  nervous  activity.  The  functional  action 
of  the  brain  must  be  a  labor,  exactly  like  that  of  the  biceps. 
Mind  itself  should  be  regarded  as  engendered  by  heat. 
Late  experiments  by  Valentin,  Lombard,  Byasson,  and  es- 
pecially Schiff,  would  seem  to  prove,  it  is  thought,  that 
there  is  a  proportional  and  constant  relation  between  the 
energy  of  nervous  functions  and  the  heat  of  the  parts  in 
which  they  are  effected.  Gavarret  boldly  concludes,  from 
his  researches,  that  heat  has  the  same  relations  to  the 
nervous  system  that  it  has  to  the  muscular  system ;  only, 
in  the  case  of  the  muscles,  the  force  produced  exhibits  it- 
self externally  by  visible  phenomena,  while  in  that  of  the 
nerves  it  is  exhausted  internally  in  profound  molecular 
action,  which  eludes  any  exact  measurement.  A  given 
sum  of  heat  developed  in  the  system  would  thus  be  on  one 
side  a  mechanical  equivalent,  and  on  the  other  a  psycho- 
logical equivalent.  Gavarret,  who  is  a  cautious  savant  and 
true  to  experimental  methods,  doubtless  does  not  go  so  far 
as  to  maintain  that  thought  and  feeling  can  be  estimated 
in  heat-units ;  he  even  asserts  that  there  is  no  common 
measure  between  intelligence  and  heat;  but  less  timid 


HEAT  AND  LIFE.  141 

physiologists  are  not  wanting  who  reduce  every  kind  of 
vital  manifestation  to  the  strict  laws  of  thermo-dynamics. 
A  few  succinct  remarks  may  perhaps  show  that  such  physi- 
ologists err. 

A  comparison  between  the  muscular  and  the  nervous 
systems  from  the  point  of  view  of  their  connection  with 
heat  is  a  bold  one  for  many  reasons.  Between  nerve  and 
muscle  there  exists  this  enormous  difference — that  the  for- 
mer is  endowed  with  a  spontaneity  denied  to  the  latter. 
Muscular  fibre  never  contracts  of  its  own  accord ;  it  needs 
a  stimulus — its  energy  is  borrowed.  The  nerve-cell,  on  the 
contrary,  has  in  itself  an  ever-present,  never-exhausted 
power  of  action,  the  energy  of  which  is  its  peculiar  prop- 
erty. Both  evidently  derive  the  principle  of  the  activity 
that  marks  them  from  the  same  external  and  internal 
media ;  but,  while  the  muscle,  a  mechanical  organ,  is  lim- 
ited to  the  obedient  transformation  of  the  force  assigned  to 
it,  under  the  form  of  heat,  into  a  measurable  amount  of 
work,  the  nerve,  a  vital  organ,  remains  impenetrable  and 
inaccessible  to  our  calculations,  and  exerts  its  characteristic 
and  sovereign  powers  in  its  own  way,  through  a  series  of 
operations  that  escape  all  estimates  of  their  force  and  he  at. 
On  the  part  of  the  muscular  system,  every  thing  can  be 
measured;  on  the  part  of  the  nervous  system,  nothing. 
Impressions,  sensations,  affections,  thoughts,  desires,  pleas- 
ures, and  pains,  make  up  a  world  withdrawn  from  the 
common  conditions  of  determination.  That  superior  force 
which,  ruling  all  the  highest  animal  activities,  decides,  sus- 
pends, checks,  and  governs  the  very  transformation  of  heat 
into  movement ;  which,  asserting  its  independence  within 
us,  call  it  by  whatever  name  we  may — soul,  will,  or  freedom 
— remains  the  most  undeniable,  though  the  most  mysterious, 
certainty  of  our  consciousness — this  force  protests  against 
the  degradation  of  cerebral  life  to  mechanism.  Such  is  the 
conviction,  moreover,  of  Claude  Bernard  and  of  Helmholtz. 


142  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

II. 

Independently  of  the  slight  and  usual  variations  that 
heat  may  present  in  the  same  species,  and  those  it  exhibits 
in  passing  from  one  zoological  group  to  another,  we  may 
consider  the  changes  it  undergoes  in  the  same  individual, 
influenced  by  the  various  disturbances  of  the  system.  Al- 
though it  remains  almost  insensible  to  modifications  of  the 
surrounding  temperature,  it  is  not  the  same  when  the  com- 
plete equilibrium  of  the  organs  is  affected.  The  concord 
between  the  different  parts  of  the  organism  and  the  func- 
tions they  discharge  is  so  perfect  that  the  least  trouble  is 
reflected  among  them,  and  sends  disorder  everywhere. 
The  nervous  system,  charged  with  keeping  up  harmonious 
communication  between  all  points  of  the  living  being,  first 
takes  note  of  the  change  befalling,  and  transmits  its  abnor- 
mal impression  into  all  quarters.  It  is  not  the  generator, 
but  it  is  the  regulator,  of  animal  heat ;  that  is  to  say,  it 
directs  and  in  a  manner  oversees  its  production  and  diffu- 
sion according  to  the  varying  needs  of  the  system.  Every 
lesion  or  affection  of  this  system  reacts  on  the  physiologi- 
cal processes,  and  particularly  on  the  evolution  of  heat. 
By  cutting  the  filament  of  the  great  sympathetic  nerve  on 
only  one  side  of  a  rabbit's  neck,  Claude  Bernard  produced 
an  elevation  of  temperature  of  several  degrees  on  that  side. 
The  blood  flows  toward  the  point  where  the  action  of  the 
nervous  system  is  suspended  under  any  influence  whatever, 
bringing  with  it  an  increase  of  heating  force.  At  a  point 
where  the  reverse  occurs,  the  vessels  contract,  and  the  tem- 
perature falls. 

Imperfect  nutrition  and  fasting  act  on  the  animal  heat, 
but  not  directly.  The  organism  keeps  up  to  its  normal 
degree  of  temperature  till  it  has  exhausted  its  reserved 
store  of  combustible  substances.  Then  it  cools  slowly 
down  to  a  much  lower  degree.  Thus,  a  rabbit,  starved  by 


HEAT  AND  LIFE.  143 

Chasset,  showed  the  first  day  a  warmth  of  38°  4'  (cent.)  ; 
two  days  before  its  death,  38°  1' ;  the  evening  before,  37° 
5' ;  and  at  the  moment  of  death,  27°.  By  placing  it  in  a 
warm  medium  the  moment  it  was  about  to  die,  the  appar- 
ent activity  of  its  functions  was  restored  for  a  little  while ; 
but  the  renewal  is  of  brief  duration :  the  anatomical  ele- 
ments have  absolutely  lost  their  spring. 

The  hand  of  an  invalid  suffering  from  inflammation  of 
the  chest,  or  from  an  attack  of  fever,  is  burning;  that  of  one 
affected  by  serious  asthma,  or  by  emphysema,  is  as  cold  to 
the  touch  as  marble.  This  is  because  animal  heat  varies 
greatly  in  different  pathological  states.  Sometimes  it  rises, 
sometimes  it  falls  ;  and  the  morbid  influence  is  scarcely  ever 
compatible  with  the  body's  degree  of  normal  temperature. 
In  Hippocrates's  time,  when  examination  of  the  pulse  was 
not  yet  practised,  the  increase  of  temperature  was  the  only 
element  in  the  commonest  of  maladies,  fever.  Galen  de- 
fines it  quite  simply  as  an  extraordinary  heat  (color  prceter- 
naturalis  substantia  febrium).  The  ancients  did  not  err. 
It  has  been  admitted  and  proved  in  our  days  that  the  eleva- 
tion of  the  animal  heat  is  just  the  specific  character  of  the 
febrile  condition.  On  the  one  hand,  there  is  never  any 
fever  when  the  temperature  continues  at  the  normal  de- 
gree ;  on  the  other,  the  rapidity  of  the  pulse  may  reach  the 
utmost  limits,  without  any  febrile  movement,  as  is  seen  in 
hysteria.  Whenever  the  bodily  heat  exceeds  38°  (cent.), 
it  may  be  affirmed  that  there  is  fever ;  and,  whenever  it 
falls  below  36°,  there  is  what  is  termed  algidity.  So  that 
the  normal  heat  varies  within  the  narrow  range  of  scarcely 
two  degrees.  Beyond  these  limits,  that  is,  above  38°  and 
below  36°,  the  temperature  points  out  some  morbid  trouble. 
In  common  intermittent  fever,  it  rises  two  or  three  hours 
before  the  chill,  reaches  a  maximum  at  the  close  of  it,  and 
then  falls.  Acute  and  decided  inflammations,  such  as  pneu- 
monia, pleurisy,  bronchitis,  erysipelas,  etc.,  are  marked  by 


144  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

a  period  of  thirty-six  hours,  or  about  two  days,  during 
which  the  heat  rises  slowly  to  41°.  Toward  the  third  day, 
this  heat  decreases,  ready  to  reappear  in  exacerbations  of 
from  half  a  degree  to  a  degree,  during  three  or  seven  days, 
at  the  end  of  which  time  the  disorder  has  run  its  course. 
When  the  temperature  gradually  rises  after  the  third  day, 
a  fatal  result  may  be  expected.  Persistent  heat  in  that 
case  is  the  precursor  of  death.  Eruptive  fevers,  like  small- 
pox, scarlatina,  and  measles,  present  very  important  phe- 
nomena of  heat.  In  these  heat  begins  with  the  attack  of 
the  malady,  and  increases  till  the  cutaneous  eruption  oc- 
curs. It  keeps  up  at  a  maximum,  which  reaches  42^°  (in 
scarlatina),  till  the  eruption  is  complete  ;  then  it  begins  a 
declining  course,  variable  with  the  phases  of  the  eruption, 
which  finishes  either  with  scaling  off  as  in  scarlatina,  or 
suppuration  as  in  small-pox.  And  the  temperature  rises 
also  in  several  surgical  affections,  bringing  on  a  more  or 
less  inflamed  and  feverish  condition.  This  is  observed  in 
wounds,  and  generally  in  every  kind  of  traumatism,  in  te- 
tanus, aneurisms,  etc.  In  the  case  of  strangulated  hernia 
and  of  burns,  and  in  most  cases  of  poisoning,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  declines  in  a  remarkable  way. 

Very  plainly  this  rising  and  falling  of  animal  warmth  in 
diseases  can  only  be  attributed  to  a  corresponding  state 
occurring  in  the  energy  of  respiratory  combustion.  We  do 
not  yet  exactly  know  the  cause  of  these  variations,  that  is, 
the  mechanism  by  which  the  morbid  influences  stimulate  or 
check  the  active  production  of  heat.  Some  physicians  see 
in  it  the  effect  of  fermentations  occasioned  in  the  blood  by 
certain  microscopic  beings,  such  as  bacteria  and  vibriones, 
which  may  perhaps  be  supposed  to  be  the  fact  in  most 
febrile  maladies.  Others  assume  that,  in  local  inflamma- 
tions, it  is  the  inflamed  organ  which  communicates  heat  to 
the  whole  body,  as  a  furnace  does  in  a  confined  space.  To 
others  the  disturbance  seems  rather  to  have  a  nervous 


HEAT  AND  LIFE.  145 

origin,  since  the  nerves,  as  we  have  seen,  are  the  regulators 
of  thermic  action. 

The  use  of  the  thermometer  is  the  only  exact  method 
of  measuring  the  temperature  in  disease.  Swammerdam, 
in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  seems  to  have 
been  the  first  to  have  the  idea  of  it.  De  Haen  and  Hunter, 
in  the  last  century,  used  it  in  their  medical  practice,  but 
its  employment  at  the  sick-bed  has  really  only  come  into 
importance  in  our  day,  thanks  to  the  labors  of  Bouilland, 
Gavarret,  Roger,  Hirtz,  and  Charcot,  in  France;  Baren- 
sprung,  Traube,  and  especially  Wunderlich,  in  Germany. 
These  physicians  were  not  content  with  proving  that  the  tem- 
perature in  illness  rises  several  degrees  ;  they  followed  the 
variations  of  the  thermometer  day  by  day,  hour  by  hour,  in 
the  different  phases  of  the  pathologic  movements.  They 
discovered  that  the  curves  of  these  oscillations  furnish  con- 
stant types  for  each  disease,  which  are  modified  in  a  reg- 
ular manner,  according  as  the  disease  has  been  left  to  itself 
or  treated  by  one  or  another  medicine.  By  the  study  of 
these  pathologic  curves  of  heat  the  course  of  diseases  may 
be  followed,  and  valuable  indications  noted  in  diagnosis  or 
prognosis.  In  haemorrhage  of  the  brain,  for  instance,  the 
temperature  falls  to  36°  or  even  35°,  while,  in  the  attack 
that  takes  the  form  of  apoplexy,  it  continues  nearly  at  38°. 
These  two  disorders,  quite  distinct  in  their  treatment  and 
cure,  yet  often  give  rise  to  a  confusion,  which  the  thermom- 
eter will  hereafter  permit  us  to  avoid.  Granular  menin- 
gitis is  distinguished  from  simple  meningitis  by  the  same 
method ;  in  the  former  the  temperature  does  not  rise,  not- 
withstanding the  extreme  rapidity  of  the  pulse,  but  in  the 
latter  the  thermometer  marks  40°  or  41°. 

In  every  case  we  see  what  advantage  practical  medicine 
may  gain  from  the  physical  sciences,  what  precision  and 
safety  it  attains  by  the  employment  of  its  means,  in  pro- 
portion to  the  morbid  symptoms.  We  may  add  that  the 


146  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

future  of  diagnosis  is  to  be  found  partly  here.  By  the  ban- 
ishment from  medical  examination  of  the  often-uncertain 
judgment  of  the  senses,  by  substituting  as  far  as  possible 
for  personal  and  arbitary  conclusions,  as  well  as  for  the 
feeling,  always  more  or  less  confused,  of  the  physician,  the 
plain  and  impassive  indications  of  an  exact  instrument,  we 
do  away  with  the  causes  that  impede  the  methodical  inter- 
pretation of  the  evil  in  question.  Moreover,  these  instru- 
ments often  reveal  peculiarities  that  elude  direct  observa- 
tion. They  repair  the  omissions,  correct  the  mistakes, 
guide  the  activity,  multiply  the  power  of  our  imperfect 
senses.  From  this  point  of  view,  the  study,  by  the  ther- 
mometer, of  variations  of  animal  heat  in  diseases,  ther- 
mometric  clinic,  as  it  is  called,  is  one  of  the  most  indis- 
putable onward  steps  in  medicine. 

III. 

After  having  seen  how  internal  heat  is  produced  in  ani- 
mals, how  it  expends  itself  in  them,  and  undergoes  change 
into  mechanical  work,  in  fine,  what  spontaneous  or  occa- 
sional changes  it  passes  through  in  them,  we  should  study 
the  influence  of  external  heat  on  the  same  animals,  and  the 
various  phenomena  resulting  from  the  rise  or  fall  of  tem- 
perature in  the  medium  they  live  in.  Quite  recent  re- 
searches have  thrown  light  on  these  questions.  Boerhaave 
had  made  some  experiments,  not  sufficiently  exact,  however, 
on  the  subject.  Berger  and  Delaroche,  at  the  beginning 
of  this  century,  undertook  new  ones,  which  gained  celebrity 
in  the  schools  of  physiology.  They  placed  animals  in  stoves 
containing  air  heated  to  different  degrees  of  temperature, 
and  noted  the  effects  produced  on  life  by  thermic  influences. 
The  conclusion  from  their  researches  was,  that  all  animals 
have  the  power  of  resisting  heat  for  a  certain  length  of  time, 
and  that  the  duration  of  resistance  varies  with  the  species. 
Small  animals  yield  after  a  moderate  time  to  a  temperature 


HEAT  AND  LIFE.  147 

of  45°  to  50°  (cent.).  Larger  ones  endure  heat  better. 
Cold-blooded  animals  and  the  larvse  of  insects  resist  more 
energetically  than  warm-blooded  animals ;  but  the  reverse 
is  the  case  with  fully-developed  insects. 

Delaroche  and  Berger  studied  the  human  subject,  too, 
from  the  same  point  of  view,  and  ascertained  that  the  effect 
produced  varies  with  individuals.  Thus  from  49°  to  58° 
the  stove  grew  insupportable  to  Delaroche  himself,  who  be- 
came ill  from  the  experiment,  while  Berger  was  scarcely 
fatigued  by  it.  On  the  other  hand,  Berger  could  remain 
only  seven  minutes  in  a  medium  heated  to  87°,  while  Blag- 
den  staid  twelve  minutes  in  it.  In  tropical  countries  the 
heat  often  rises  during  the  day  above  40°  without  troubling 
the  natives.  At  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  the  thermometer 
marks  43°.  Yet  sometimes  such  a  heat  is  murderous.  It 
is  related,  among  other  cases,  that  in  the  month  of  June, 
1738,  in  the  streets  of  Charleston,  several  persons  died  un- 
der the  influence  of  41°.  In  Africa  our  soldiers  are  often 
known  to  be  attacked  with  madness  and  to  die  in  making 
a  long  march,  under  the  rays  of  a  burning  sun,  but  here 
the  influence  of  light  is  combined  with  that  of  heat.  Du- 
hamel  mentions  the  account  of  several  servant-girls  of  a 
baker,  who  could  remain  without  any  inconvenience  at  all 
for  nearly  ten  minutes  in  an  oven  heated  to  the  necessary 
degree  for  baking  bread.  The  experiment  has  since  been 
repeated.  There  is  nothing  contradictory  in  these  facts. 
An  animal  can  endure  for  some  time  a  temperature  much 
higher  than  its  own,  because  the  very  profuse  transpiration 
which  occurs  in  such  a  case  prevents  the  heating  of  the  or- 
gans ;  yet,  as  we  shall  see,  so  soon  as  the  internal  heat 
really  rises  a  few  degrees  above  the  normal  figure,  life  is  no 
longer  possible. 

The  study  of  these  phenomena  had  scarcely  been  carried 
further,  when  in  1842  Claude  Bernard  devoted  to  it  certain 
researches,  which  he  resumed  and  finished  Jast  year,  and  of 


148  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

which  he  has  just  published  the  results.  This  physiologist 
used  a  pine  box,  divided  into  two  parts  by  a  grating,  on 
which  the  animal  subjected  to  the  experiment  is  placed. 
The  box  rests  on  a  cast-iron  plate,  and  the  whole  is  ar- 
ranged on  a  furnace  which  warms  the  air  of  the  apparatus 
more  or  less.  A  window,  placed  in  the  side  of  the  box, 
allows  the  head  of  the  animal  to  be  fixed  outside  of  it  at 
will.  Examining  animals,  subjected  under  these  conditions 
to  the  influence  of  air  more  or  less  warm,  Bernard  verified 
the  first  observations  of  Berger  and  Delaroche,  and  made 
new  and  more  important  ones.  Boerhaave  had  given  as 
the  cause  of  death  the  application  of  hot  air  to  the  lun.gs, 
preventing  the  cooling  of  the  blood.  Bernard  showed  by 
experiments  that  hot  air,  acting  on  the  skin,  creates  a  rise 
of  temperature  more  rapidly  fatal  than  when  this  fluid  is 
merely  introduced  into  the  pulmonary  vessels.  He  proved 
also  that,  when  the  hot  air  is  damp,  the  phenomena  take  a 
more  rapid  course,  and  death  occurs  much  more  quickly 
and  at  a  lower  temperature,  than  in  dry  air.  This  difference 
must  result  from  the  fact  that  dampness  promotes  a  rise  in 
temperature. 

When  an  animal  is  subjected  to  the  poisoning  effects 
of  heat,  it  presents  a  series  of  uniform  and  characteristic 
phenomena.  It  is  at  first  a  little  disturbed,  then  panting, 
its  movements  of  respiration  and  circulation  accelerate,  it 
grows  slowly  hotter  through  the  circulation,  which,  carrying 
the  blood  continually  from  the  surface  to  the  centre,  bears 
heat  also  along  with  it,  then  at  a  given  moment  it  falls  into 
convulsions,  the  beating  of  its  heart  ceases,  and  it  dies 
uttering  a  cry.  By  means  of  the  thermometer  it  is  noted 
that  the  temperature  of  the  animal,  in  every  case,  is  higher 
by  four  or  five  degrees  (cent.)  than  the  figure  which  repre- 
sents the  normal  warmth.  Thus  at  first  the  animal  is  ex- 
cited, its  functions  seem  to  be  performed  with  fresh  vigor, 
very  much  as,  in  the  first  rays  of  April  sunshine,  the  pul- 


HEAT  AND  LIFE.  149 

sations  of  life  in  all  beings  become  more  rapid ;  but  this 
stimulus  is  only  fleeting,  and  soon,  when  it  reaches  a  cer- 
tain degree,  this  heat  gives  place  to  the  cold  of  death. 
Bernard  carefully  examined  animals  dying  under  these  con- 
ditions, and  the  first  phenomenon  that  struck  him  was  the 
rapidity  with  which  corpse-like  rigidity  came  on.  The 
heart  grew  suddenly  insensible  to  any  stimulus ;  effused 
spots  appeared  at  several  points  on  the  skin.  The  heat 
fixed  in  coa.gulation  the  soft  matter  that  composes  the  mus- 
cular fibres.  These  had  the  look  of  being  struck  with  light- 
ning. On  the  other  hand,  the  arterial  blood  of  the  animal 
grew  black,  ill-supplied  with  oxygen,  overloaded  with  car- 
bonic acid,  and  assumed  the  look  of  venous  blood.  Yet  in 
this  state  the  blood  has  not  lost  its  physiological  properties, 
and  under  the  influence  of  a  new  supply  of  oxygen  can  re- 
gain its  normal  state,  and  grow  ruddy  again.  The  heat, 
provided  the  degree  be  not  too  elevated,  only  promotes 
activity  in  sanguine  combustion,  without  changing  the  blood. 
Nor  does  the  nervous  system  either  appear  to  suffer  much. 
The  element  most  deeply  affected  is  muscle  ;  heat  is  a  poi- 
son of  the  muscular  system,  like  sulpho-cyanuret  of  potas- 
sium, and  the  upas-antiar.  It  is  the  loss  of  the  vital  proper- 
ties of  this  system  which,  by  bringing  about  rigidity  of  the 
muscles,  then  the  stoppage  of  circulation,  and  consequently 
of  respiration,  is  a  necessary  cause  of  death.  This  destruc- 
tion of  the  contractile  muscular  fibre  occurs  toward  37°  or 
39°  in  cold-blooded  animals,  toward  43°  or  44°  in  mammals, 
toward  46°  or  48°  in  birds,  that  is,  speaking  generally,  at 
a  temperature  five  or  six  degrees  higher  than  the  natural 
temperature  of  the  animal.  Bernard  calls  attention  to  the 
fact  that  in  no  case  is  it  allowable  to  suppose  that  life  op- 
poses a  kind  of  resistance  to  the  excessive  heating ;  on  the 
contrary,  vital  movement  tends  to  quicken  it,  and  that  may 
be  readily  understood.  The  internal  heat  produced  by  the 
animal  unites  with  the  acquired  heat,  and  the  renewal  of 


150  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

the  blood,  which  is  the  condition  of  the  heating,  then  occurs 
with  much  greater  activity.  Let  us  add  that  quite  lately 
Demarquay  applied  this  toxic  action  of  heat  on  the  muscles 
in  the  happiest  manner,  and  without  suspecting  it.  He 
cured  patients  suffering  from  those  frightful  muscular  con- 
tractions which  characterize  tetanus,  by  subjecting  them  to 
the  influence  of  caloric,  and  making  them  take  very  hot  air- 
baths.  The  rise  of  temperature  in  the  tetanized  muscles 
was  sufficient  to  modify  them,  and  restore  them  to  a  healthy 
state.  Here  the  poison  worked  a  cure. 

Such  are  the  effects  on  animals  of  the  elevation  of  tem- 
perature. Let  us  now  see  what  becomes  of  them  when  im- 
mersed in  cold  media.  Some  curious  facts  with  respect  to 
the  freezing  of  certain  animals  have  long  been  known. 
During  his  voyage  to  Iceland,  in  1828  or  1829,  Gaimard, 
having  exposed  in  the  open  air  a  box  filled  with  earth  in 
which  toads  were  put,  opening  it  after  a  certain  time,  found 
the  reptiles  frozen,  hard  and  brittle ;  but  they  could  be  re- 
stored to  life  when  put  in  warm  water.  Many  ancient  au- 
thors cite  similar  cases,  and  we  can  almost  bring  ourselves 
to  understand  how  a  great  English  physiologist  might  for 
a  moment  have  given  them  the  whimsical  interpretation 
that  he  did.  John  Hunter  fancied  it  might  be  possible  to 
prolong  life  indefinitely  by  placing  a  man  in  a  very  cold 
climate,  and  there  subjecting  him  to  periodical  freezing. 
The  man,  he  said,  would  perhaps  live  a  thousand  years,  if, 
at  the  end  of  every  ten  years,  he  were  frozen  for  a  hundred, 
then  thawed  out  at  the  end  of  the  term  for  ten  years  more, 
and  so  continuously.  "  Like  all  inventors,"  Hunter  adds,  "  I 
expected  to  make  my  fortune  by  this  scheme,  but  an  exper- 
iment completely  undeceived  me."  Putting  carp  into  a 
freezing  mixture,  he  observed,  in  fact,  that,  after  being  en- 
tirely frozen,  they  were  dead,  past  recovery.  The  case  is 
the  same  with  all  other  animals,  as  the  late  and  very  re- 
markable experiments  of  F.  A.  Pouchet  have  proved. 


HEAT  AND  LIFE.  151 

The  influence  of  cold  on  organized  beings  varies,  ac- 
cording as  we  regard  superior  animals  or  the  inferior  spe- 
cies. In  general,  it  may  be  said  that  it  requires  a  very  low 
surrounding  temperature  to  chill  many  animals,  because  the 
vital  heat  they  develop  resists  the  process  with  energy. 
Yet  the  mammals  of  arctic  regions,  in  spite  of  their  thick 
coat  of  fur,  can  only  brave  the  temperature  of  the  pole 
— sometimes  equal  to  40°  (cent.)  below  zero,  the  freezing- 
point  of  mercury — by  living  under  the  snow  where  they 
make  their  lair.  The  Esquimaux,  too,  dig  huts  in  it,  where 
they  pass  their  wretched  days.  When  the  organism  can 
neither  react  nor  protect  itself  against  temperatures  so  low, 
death  by  freezing  quickly  overtakes  it.  The  body  is  stiff- 
ened, and  retains  afterward  a  state  of  remarkable  incorrupti- 
bility. Every  one  knows  the  story  of  the  antediluvian  mam- 
moths discovered  in  the  polar  ice,  where  they  had  been  bur- 
ied, as  fresh  as  animals  just  dead.  While  heat  destroys  the 
tissues,  cold  preserves  them. 

Through  what  mechanical  means  does  cold  become  mor- 
tal ?  It  seems  to  act  on  the  nervous  system.  Travelers 
relate  that  in  polar  regions  an  unconquerable  disposition  to 
sleep  overcomes  men  attacked  by  very  low  temperatures. 
On  the  icy  shores  of  Terra  del  Fuego,  Solander  said  to  his 
companions,  "  Whoever  sits  down  falls  asleep,  and  who- 
ever falls  asleep  never  wakes  again."  This  inclination  is 
so  overpowering  that  many  of  his  attendants  gave  up  to  it, 
and  he  himself  sank  down  for  a  moment  on  the  snow.  It  is 
said  that,  during  the  winter  of  1700,  two  thousand  soldiers 
of  Charles  XII. 's  army  perished  in  the  sleep  to  which  they 
surrendered,  under  the  influence  of  cold.  Its  action  on  the 
nervous  centres,  however,  is  only  secondary  and  consequent 
on  another  phenomenon,  studied  by  Pouchet,  which  reveals 
this  as  the  secret  of  death.  When  the  temperature  of  the 
interior  of  the  body  sinks  to  10°  dfrlS0  below  zero  (cent.), 
the  cold  freezes  the  blood  more  or  less,  thoroughly  disor- 


152  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

ganizing  its  globules,  and  it  is  this  alteration  which,  either 
at  once  or  when  the  blood  beomes  fluid  again,  destroys  all 
the  vital  functions.  Larrey  relates  the  case  of  Bureau, 
chief  apothecary  of  the  French  army  in  Russia,  who,  when 
chilled  to  freezing  by  a  painful  march  in  the  snow,  did  not 
die  until  the  moment  they  began  to  restore  warmth.  Ex- 
periments on  animals  show  that  they  keep  themselves  alive 
as  long  as  they  are  maintained  in  a  state  of  half  congelation, 
and  die  whenever  their  temperature  and  circulation  are  so 
far  restored  as  to  permit  the  blood-globules,  disorganized 
by  cold,  to  be  diffused  throughout  the  vessels.  Death  oc- 
curs, therefore,  whenever  the  quantity  of  these  globules  is 
sufficient  to  produce  a  considerable  disturbance  in  the  sys- 
tem, that  is,  whenever  the  frozen  part  is  at  all  extensive. 
An  animal  entirely  frozen,  and  consequently  containing  in 
its  congealed  blood  no  globules  but  those  unfit  for  life,  is 
dead,  without  possibility  of  resurrection.  Thawing  it  only 
restores  a  soft,  flaccid,  discolored  body,  with  opaque  eyes. 
If  freezing  only  attacks  a  limb,  it  becomes  gangrenous,  and 
is  destroyed.  Pouchet  deduced  from  these  examinations  a 
judicious,  practical  conclusion.  If  it  is  true  that,  in  cases 
of  partial  freezing,  the  death  of  the  individual  is  due  to 
the  disorganized  globules  reentering  the  circulation  and 
corrupting  the  blood,  it  is  plain  that,  the  more  sudden 
the  invasion  of  these  globules  is,  the  more  rapidly  death 
will  supervene.  It  follows,  that,  by  resisting  this  inva- 
sion, by  means  of  ligatures,  or  extremely  slow  thawing, 
we  might  succeed  in  preventing  the  poisoning.  The  dis- 
eased globules  which,  pouring  in  a  flood  into  the  heart 
and  lungs,  would  imperil  life  by  the  sudden  alteration 
of  the  blood,  will  apparently  disturb  it  merely  in  an  un- 
important way,  if  they  are  dropped  into  the  blood  by  slow 
degrees. 

Thus  the  late  researches  of  experimental  physiology  ex- 
plain for  us  the  effects  of  heat  and  cold,  regarded  as  toxic 


HEAT   AND   LIFE.  153 

agents.  The  former  is  a  poison  of  the  muscular  fibre,  the  lat- 
ter a  poison  of  the  blood-globules.  The  case  is  the  same  with 
heat  as  with  the  other  elements  of  the  cosmic  medium,  in 
which  the  animated  being  lives.  It  infolds  the  most  contradic- 
tory powers,  like  the  tender  flower,  spoken  of  by  Friar  Law. 
rence,  in  "  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  from  which  may  be  distilled 
both  safety  and  danger.  It  can  by  turns  support  health, 
heal  disease,  or  inflict  death. 

Man  is,  then,  the  weak  plaything  of  all  those  silent 
forces  that  surround  and  press  upon  him.  In  vain  he  en- 
slaves them ;  he  cannot  escape  the  inflexible  laws  that  sub- 
ject the  equilibrium  of  life  to  that  of  the  lowest  physico- 
chemical  conditions.  He  has  at  least  the  consolation  of 
knowing  these  laws,  and  guiding  his  existence  so  as  to 
soften  their  severity  as  far  as  possible.  When  Nature 
crushes  him,  she  is  unconscious  of  it,  unconscious  of  her- 
self: man,  so  small,  is  greater  than  these  blind  greatnesses, 
because  his  peculiar  greatness  is  consciousness.  The  sub- 
ject we  have  been  studying  is  a  grand  proof  of  this ;  but 
its  full,  imposing  interest  would  not  be  understood,  were 
we  to  end  without  giving  the  answer  to  the  last  question 
it  suggests.  Whence  comes  this  heat  developed  by  chemi- 
cal phenomena  in  the  living  system  ?  It  comes  from  ali- 
ments, which,  in  the  last  resort,  are  all  drawn  from  plants, 
and  they  have  borrowed  it  from  the  sun.  When  the  vegeta- 
bles, whose  combustion  takes  place  within  the  animal,  there 
throw  off  a  certain  amount  of  potential  energy,  as  heat, 
they  do  but  transmit  it  to  the  force  which  the  sun  has  sup- 
plied them  with.  It  is,  then,  a  portion  of  solar  radiation, 
stored  up  at  first  by  the  plant,  which  the  animal  makes 
disposable  and  converts  to  use,  whether  for  resisting  cold 
or  for  securing  the  regular  play  of  his  motive  functions. 
Thus  we  may  say,  with  exact  truth,  the  sun  is  the  inex- 
haustible source,  as  it  is  the  perpetual  spring,  of  life.  From 
this  point  of  view,  science  confirms  the  intuitions  of  oldest 


154  NATURE  AND  LITE. 

date,  and  man's  poetic  dreams  in  the  childhood  of  the  race. 
Reason  completes  the  instructions  of  its  long  experience 
by  harmonious  agreement  with  the  simple  and  natural  sen- 
timent felt  by  the  first  of  men,  when  for  the  first  time  they 
looked  on  the  splendor  of  day. 


ELECTRICITY  AND  LIFE. 

GALVANI  discovered,  in  1794,  that  the  muscles  of  ani- 
mals experience  contractions  in  contact  with  certain  metals. 
In  his  view,  this  contact  merely  calls  out  the  discharge  of 
a  fluid  inherent  in  the  animals  themselves.  The  fact  was 
not  to  be  contested,  but  its  explanation  was.  Lively  dis- 
cussions in  the  schools  of  physiology  followed — fortunately, 
with  a  clear  understanding  that  the  difficulty  could  only  be 
determined  by  experiments.  A  vast  number  were  made, 
the  name  of  Volta  being  connected  with  the  most  remark- 
able of  them.  Alexander  Volta  maintained,  in  opposition 
to  Galvani,  that  the  electricity  which  produces  contractions 
in  the  muscles,  far  from  originating  in  those  organs,  is  in- 
troduced by  the  metals  used  in  the  process.  In  proof  of 
this  he  constructed,  in  1800,  the  pile  that  bears  his  name, 
and  which  is  an  arrangement  in  which  the  connection  of 
two  different  metals  becomes  an  abundant  source  of  the 
electric  fluid.  Galvani  and  Volta  were  two  men  of  dis- 
tinguished genius,  who  thoroughly  understood  physics  and 
physiology,  and  advanced  nothing  heedlessly.  Their  dis- 
coveries were  the  point  of  departure  for  one  of  the  most 
admirable  movements  in  all  the  history  of  science,  a  move- 
ment which  is  still  most  active,  and  is  the  more  remarkable 
because  it  resulted  but  yesterday,  as  it  were,  in  the  com- 
plete demonstration  that  Galvani  and  Volta  were  both  in 
the  right.  Science  to-day  proves  that  there  is  an  electricity 


156  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

peculiar  to  animals,  as  Galvani  declared.  It  decides  also 
that  electricity  produced  by  external  causes  has  an  influ- 
ence over  animals,  as  Volta  taught.  From  profound  study 
of  the  two  orders  of  phenomena,  it  deduces  a  system  of 
procedure  for  the  cure  of  very  many  maladies  by  electricity. 
Consequently,  an  exposition  of  the  relations  between  elec- 
tricity and  life  must  begin  with  examining  the  electricity 
that  exists  naturally,  in  the  same  way  that  heat  does,  in 
animals,  and  then  go  on  to  explain  the  action  of  the  fluid 
on  the  organism,  whether  in  a  healthy  or  morbid  state. 
Such  a  description  will  complete  what  has  been  written  in 
the  Revue  respecting  the  relations  of  life  with  light  and 
heat — relations  that  we  may  to-day  consider  as  forming  the 
features  of  a  new  science. 


The  most  authentic  witnesses  to  the  existence  of  animal 
electricity  are  fish.  The  torpedo,  the  silurus,  the  gymno- 
tus,  the  ray,  and  other  fishes,  develop  spontaneously  a 
more  or  less  considerable  quantity  of  electricity.  This 
fluid,  the  production  of  which  depends  upon  the  animal's 
will,  is  identical  with  that  of  common  electrical  machines ; 
it  gives  the  like  shocks  and  sparks  at  a  certain  tension. 
The  apparatus  for  its  formation  consists  of  a  series  of 
small  disks  of  a  peculiar  substance,  kept  apart  by  cells  of 
laminated  tissue.  Fine  nerve-end  fibres  are  scattered  over 
the  surface  of  these  disks,  and  the  whole  represents  a  sort 
of  membranous  pile,  usually  placed  in  the  region  of  the 
head,  sometimes  toward  the  tail. 

These  fishes  are  the  only  animals  provided  with  an  ap- 
paratus specially  devoted  to  the  production  of  electricity ; 
but  all  animals  are  electric,  in  this  sense,  that  a  certain 
quantity  of  that  fluid  is  constantly  forming  within  their 
organs.  The  existence  of  electricity  peculiar  to  the  nerves 
and  muscles,  and  independent  of  their  special  modes  of 


ELECTRICITY  AND  LIFE.  157 

action,  has  been  settled  by  numerous  experiments,  particu- 
larly by  those  of  Nobili,  Matteucci,  and  Du  Bois-Reymond. 
To  prove  the  currents  of  nervous  electricity,  it  is  sufficient 
to  prepare  a  frog's  muscle,  and  touch  it  at  two  different 
points  with  the  two  ends  of  a  nerve-filament  of  the  same 
animal.  The  muscle  then  undergoes  contraction  under  the 
influence  of  the  nervous  current.  Another  experiment,  as 
simple,  proves  the  existence  of  the  muscular  current.  In 
an  animal  living  or  just  killed,  a  muscle  is  exposed  and 
cuts  made  in  it  perpendicularly  to  the  course  of  the  fleshy 
fibres,  and  communication  effected  by  the  two  wires  of  a 
very  sensitive  galvanoscope  between  the  natural  surface  of 
the  muscle  and  the  surface  made  by  incision.  The  needle 
of  the  instrument  then  betrays  the  passage  of  a  current. 
This  muscular  electricity  may  be  obtained  in  tolerable 
quantity  by  placing  a  number  of  slices  of  muscle  together 
in  the  form  of  a  pile.  The  positive  pole  of  the  system 
will  be  the  natural  surface  of  one  of  the  terminal  slices, 
and  the  negative  pole  the  cut  surface  of  the  other.  Such 
a  battery  acts  upon  galvanic  instruments,  and  can  even  ex- 
cite contractions  in  other  muscles. 

Independent  of  these  nervous  and  muscular  electric  cur- 
rents, other  sources  of  this  fluid  exist  in  the  animal  econ- 
omy. Currents ,are  produced  between  the  outer  and  inner 
surfaces  of  the  skin,  in  the  blood,  in  the  secreting  vessels, 
in  fine,  almost  throughout  the  whole  organism.  The  ex- 
periments, as  delicate  as  original,  to  which  Becquerel  has 
for  several  years  devoted  all  the  activity  of  his  green  old 
age,  authorize  him  now  to  assert  the  preponderance  of 
electro-capillary  phenomena  in  animal  life.  According  to 
this  accomplished  physicist,  two  solutions  of  different  na- 
ture, both  conductors  of  electricity,  separated  by  a  mem- 
brane or  a  capillary  space,  compose  an  electro-chemic  cir- 
cuit ;  and,  if  we  reflect  on  the  anatomical  elements  of  the 
various  tissues,  cells,  tubes,  globules,  etc.,  in  their  connec- 


158  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

tions  with  the  fluids  that  moisten  them,  we  find  that  they 
give  rise  to  an  infinite  number  of  pairs  constantly  evolving 
electricity.  The  blood  of  the  arteries  with  that  of  the 
veins  forms  a  pair,  having  an  electro-motive  power  of  0.57, 
that  of  a  pair  with  nitric  acid  being  100.  Becquerel  ex- 
plains, by  the  intervention  of  these  currents,  many  physio- 
logical phenomena  hitherto  imperfectly  understood.  Grant- 
ing the  reality  of  such  actions,  yet  it  must  be  acknowledged 
that  the  general  doctrine  which  combines  them  each  with 
the  other,  and  links  the  whole  together  with  the  various 
modes  of  action  of  the  organism,  is  far  from  being  clear 
and  precise.  We  need  to  know  how  these  currents  are 
distributed  and  circulate,  what  lines  and  courses  they  fol- 
low. It  is  now  time  for  experimental  physiology  to  at- 
tack these  difficult  problems,  the  solution  of  which  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  for  accurate  knowledge  of  vital  determi- 
nations, that  is,  for  the  computation  and  the  estimate  of 
those  various  factors  which  are  terms  in  all  the  equations 
of  organic  movement. 

Vegetables,  too,  develop  electricity.  Pouillet  has 
clearly  demonstrated  that  vegetation  throws  it  off.  Other 
physicists,  particularly  Becquerel,  have  proved  the  exist- 
ence of  currents  in  the  fruits,  stems,  roots,  and  leaves  of 
plants.  Becquerel  took  a  branch  of  young  poplar  full  of 
sap,  introduced  a  platinum  wire  into  the  wood  and  another 
into  the  bark,  and  brought  the  two  ends  of  the  conductors 
together  in  a  galvanoscope — the  needle  at  once  showed  the 
passage  of  a  current.  Buff  has  lately  made  experiments, 
taking  care  not  to  injure  the  organs.  Two  vessels  contain- 
ing mercury  received  platinum  wires;  over  the  mercury 
stood  water  containing  the  vegetables  to  be  examined  as  to 
their  electric  condition.  Taking  the  leaves  and  roots,  Buff 
proved  a  current  passing  through  the  plant  from  the  roots 
to  the  leaves  ;  in  a  branch  severed  from  the  stem  the  cur- 
rent passed  toward  the  leaves,  too.  To  sum  up,  the  exist- 


ELECTRICITY  AND  LIFE.  159 

ence  of  vital  electricity  is  incontestable,  though  we  do  not 
yet  precisely  understand  the  conditions  of  this  internal  ex- 
citement, and  know  nothing  of  its  true  relations  with  the 
unity  of  physico-chemical  operations  in  the  living  organism. 

The  latter  are,  at  all  events,  exceedingly  complex. 
There  is  in  us,  and  in  every  organized  being,  an  infinite 
world  of  the  most  various  actions  going  on.  The  forces 
penetrating  us  are  as  manifold  as  the  materials  we  are 
moulded  from.  In  every  point  of  our  bodies,  and  at  ever}T 
moment  of  our  existence,  all  the  energies  of  Nature  meet 
and  unite.  Yet,  such  order  rules  in  the  course  of  these 
wonderful  workings,  that  harmonious  blended  action,  in- 
stead of  bewildering  confusion,  characterizes  beings  en- 
dowed with  life.  Every  thing  in  them  commands  and 
answers,  with  balance  and  counterpoise.  Buffon  long  ago 
felt  and  expressed  this.  "  The  animal,"  he  said,  "  com- 
bines all  the  forces  of  Nature :  his  individuality  is  a  centre 
to  which  every  thing  is  referred,  a  point  reflecting  the 
whole  universe,  a  world  in  little."  A  deep  saying,  coming 
from  the  great  naturalist  as  the  flash  of  an  intuition  of 
genius  rather  than  the  result  of  rigid  investigation — words 
which  the  movement  of  science  confirms  with  ever  stronger 
proofs,  while  borrowing  from  them  light  for  its  path. 

Having  determined  that  living  bodies  are  in  themselves 
sources  of  the  electric  fluid,  we  next  inquire  into  the  nature 
of  the  effects  produced  in  the  animal  organism  by  electricity 
under  different  forms.  The  atmosphere  contains  a  variable 
quantity  of  positive  electricity ;  the  earth  itself  is  always 
charged  with  negative  electricity.  It  is  not  yet  precisely 
known  how  this  diffused  and  silent  force  originates.  Phys- 
icists suppose  that  it  proceeds  from  vegetation  and  the 
evaporation  of  water.  Becquerel  has  quite  lately  set  forth 
a  number  of  reasons,  more  or  less  plausible,  for  the  belief 
that  the  chief  part  of  atmospheric  electricity  is  derived 
from  the  sun,  and  diffused  by  it  into  space  together  with 


160  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

light.  Whether  this  be  true  or  not,  while  the  sky  is  clear 
this  fluid  has  no  visible  effect  on  human  beings  ;  but,  when- 
ever it  accumulates  in  the  clouds,  and  gives  rise  to  storms, 
it  produces  effects  that  are  the  most  manifest  proofs  of  the 
influence  exerted  over  life  by  electricity.  Persons  killed  by 
lightning  present  a  great  variety  of  appearances.  Some- 
times one  struck  by  lightning  is  killed  outright  on  the  spot, 
the  body  remaining  standing  or  sitting ;  sometimes,  on  the 
contrary,  it  is  thrown  to  a  great  distance.  Sometimes  the 
flash  tears  off  and  destroys  the  victim's  dress,  leaving  the 
body  untouched,  and  sometimes  the  reverse  is  the  case. 
In  some  instances  the  destruction  is  frightful,  the  heart  is 
torn  apart  and  the  bones  crushed;  in  others  the  organs  are 
observed  entirely  uninjured.  In  certain  cases  flaccidity  of 
the  limbs  occurs,  softening  of  the  bones,  collapse  of  the 
lungs ;  in  others,  contractions  and  rigidity  are  remarked. 
Sometimes  the  body  of  the  person  struck  decomposes 
rapidly,  but  at  times  it  resists  decay.  Lightning,  which 
shatters  trees,  and  overturns  walls,  seems  not  to  produce 
mutilations  in  animals  at  all  readily.  When  the  stroke 
does  not  produce  death,  it  creates  at  least  serious  disturb- 
ances— sometimes  temporary,  but  oftener  beyond  remedy. 
Besides  the  burns  and  various  eruptions  noticed  on  the 
skin  of  those  struck  by  lightning,  they  often  suffer,  very 
curiously,  a  complete  loss  of  hair ;  they  are  affected  with 
paralysis,  dumbness,  deafness,  amaurosis,  or  imbecility. 
In  brief,  the  destructive,  attacks  of  atmospheric  electricity 
touch  all  the  functions  of  the  nervous  system. 

The  action  of  electric  fishes  may  be  likened  to  that  of 
lightning,  in  being  independent  of  our  intention.  The 
shocks  of  the  gymnotus  are  particularly  formidable.  Alex- 
ander Humboldt  relates  that,  having  put  both  his  feet  on 
one  of  these  fish,  just  taken  from  the  water,  he  experienced 
so  violent  a  shock  that  he  felt  pains  in  all  his  joints  the 
rest  of  the  day.  These  shocks  throw  the  strongest  ani- 


ELECTRICITY  AND  LIFE.  161 

mals  down,  and  it  is  necessary  to  avoid  rivers  frequented 
by  the  gymnotus,  because,  in  attempting  to  ford  them, 
horses  or  mules  might  be  killed  by  the  discharges.  To 
capture  these  fish  the  Indians  drive  wild-horses  into  the 
water,  stirring  the  eels  up  out  of  the  mud  by  their  tram- 
pling. The  yellowish  livid  creatures  press  against  the 
horses  under  their  bellies,  throw  down  the  greater  part,  and 
kill  some  of  them,  but,  exhausted  in  their  turn,  they  are 
then  easily  taken  with  the  aid  of  small  harpoons.  The  sav- 
ages employ  them  to  cure  paralysis.  Faraday  compares 
the  shock  of  a  g}7mnotus,  which  he  had  the  opportunity  to 
study,  to  that  of  a  strong  battery  of  fifteen  jars.  A  live 
eel  out  of  water,  when  touched  by  the  hand,  communicates 
a  shock  strong  in  proportion  to  the  extent  of  surface  in 
contact,  and  the  stroke  is  felt  up  to  the  shoulder,  and  fol- 
lowed by  a  very  unpleasant  numbness.  It  may  be  trans- 
mitted through  twenty  persons  in  a  chain,  the  first  one 
touching  the  back,  and  the  last  the  belly  of  the  eel.  The 
fishermen  discover  the  presence  of  an  eel  in  their  nets  by 
experiencing  a  shock  in  throwing  pailfuls  of  water  on,  to 
wash  them.  Water  is  a  good  conductor,  and  this  fish  kills 
or  benumbs  the  animals  it  feeds  on  by  delivering  a  dis- 
charge through  the  water. 

Other  sources  of  electricity  are  known  to  exist,  besides 
thunder-storms  and  fishes.  Friction-machines,  batteries, 
and  induction  instruments,  yield  three  kinds  of  currents 
that  act  on  vital  functions,  sometimes  in  a  similar  way, 
but  oftener  with  marked  differences,  which  have  only  re- 
cently been  clearly  distinguished.  The  action  of  static 
electricity,  and  that  of  electricity  of  induction,  more  sudden 
and  violent,  is  particularly  marked  by  mechanical  effects  so 
striking  that  they  have  long  distracted  experimenters  from 
examining  with  due  attention  those  effects  of  another  sort, 
produced  by  the  galvanic  current.  Yet  the  latter  in  reali- 
ty affects  the  animal  tissues  in  a  deeper  way,  and  its. re- 
8  • 


162  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

suiting  phenomena  deserve  the  liveliest  interest  from  a 
theoretical  point  of  view,  as  well  as  from  their  applied 
uses. 

Dutrochet  proved,  by  remarkable  experiments,  that, 
when  a  tube  closed  below  by  a  membrane,  and  containing 
gum-water,  is  placed  in  a  vessel  containing  pure  water,  the 
level  of  the  gum-water  rises  little  by  little  through  the  grad- 
ual introduction  of  pure  water  into  the  tube,  while  a  certain 
quantity  of  the  gum-water  inside  mingles  with  the  pure 
water  outside.  In  a  word,  a  mutual  exchange  takes  place 
between  these  two  fluids,  communicating  by  the  membrane, 
and  the  current,  passing  from  the  thinner  liquid  toward  the 
denser  one,  is  ascertained  to  be  more  rapid  than  that 
moving  in  the  opposite  direction. 

This  experiment  reveals  one  of  the  most  important  phe- 
nomena of  life  in  plants  and  animals,  noted  by  the  word 
endosrnosis.  Now,  Dutrochet  had  before  observed  that  if 
the  positive  pole  of  a  battery  be  inserted  in  the  pure  water, 
and  the  negative  pole  in  the  gum-water,  the  acts  of  endos- 
mosis  are  effected  more  energetically.  Qnimus  and  Legros 
discovered,  further,  that,  if  the  contrary  arrangement  be 
adopted,  that  is,  if  the  positive  pole  be  placed  in  the  gum- 
water,  and  the  negative  pole  in  the  pure,  the  level  of  the 
liquid  in  the  tube  descends  noticeably,  instead  of  rising. 
Electricity,  therefore,  can  reverse  the  usual  laws  of  endos- 
mosis.  It  exerts  an  influence  not  less  distinct  on  all  the 
other  physico-chemical  movements,  taking  place  deep  in 
the  organs.  In  them  it  decomposes  the  salts,  coagulates 
the  albuminoid  elements  of  the  blood  and  the  tissues,  just 
as  it  does  in  the  vessels  of  the  laboratory.  Take  a  very 
curious  instance  :  In  chemistry,  on  decomposing  the  iodide 
of  potassium,  iodine  is  freed,  and  betrays  itself  by  the 
tinge  of  intense  blue  which  it  develops  on  contact  with 
starch.  Now,  if  an  animal  be  injected  with  a  solution  of 
iodide  of  potassium,  and  then  electrified,  it  is  noticed,  after 


ELECTRICITY  AND  LIFE.  163 

a  few  minutes,  that  all  the  parts  near  the  positive  pole  of 
the  battery  turn  blue  in  presence  of  the  starch,  proving 
that  they  are  impregnated  with  iodine.  The  iodide  has 
been  almost  instantly  decomposed,  and  the  iodine  carried 
by  the  current  toward  the  positive  pole. 

It  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  the  action  of  electricity 
influences  the  whole  system  of  the  nutritive  operations. 
Onimus  and  Legros  found  that  ascending  continuous  cur- 
rents quicken  the  twofold  movement  of  assimilation  and  dis- 
assimilation.1  Animals  electrified  under  certain  conditions 
throw  off  a  greater  proportion  of  urea  and  carbonic  acid, 
proving  a  higher  energy  of  the  vital  fire.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  young  individuals,  in  course  of  development,  are 
subjected  to  the  action  of  the  current,  they  grow  tall  and 
large  more  quickly  than  in  ordinary  circumstances,  furnish- 
ing the  proof  of  an  increase  in  the  quantity  of  substances 
assimilated.  To  show  how  far  vital  phenomena  are  stimu- 
lated by  electricity,  we  will  cite  another  experiment  made 
by  Robin  and  Legros  on  noctilucae.  These  are  microscopic 
animals,  which,  when  existing  in  great  numbers  in  sea-wa- 
ter, render  it  almost  as  white  as  milk,  and  at  certain  times 
phosphorescent.  Now,  a  current  directed  into  a  vessel  filled 
with  such  water  suffices  to  bring  out  a  trace  of  light  mark- 
ing all  its  course.  Electricity  stimulates  the  phosphores- 
cence of  all  the  noctiluca3  met  on  its  passage  between  the 
two  poles. 

Interrupted  currents,  or  currents  of  induction,  con- 
tract the  blood-vessels  and  slacken  the  circulation  in  almost 
every  case :  if  they  are  intense,  they  even  effect  its  com- 
plete check  by  a  strong  contraction  of  the  little  arterial 

1  Electricity  passes  in  a  machine  between  two  poles.  It  is  ascertained 
that  the  current  circulates  from  the  positive  pole  toward  the  negative 
one.  The  current  is  called  ascending  when  the  positive  pole  is  applied 
to  the  lower  part  and  the  negative  to  the  upper  part  of  the  spine ;  it  is 
called  descending  in  the  reverse  case. 


164  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

branches.  Continuous  currents  do  not  act  in  this  way ; 
usually  they  quicken  the  circulation,  while  occasioning  an 
enlargement  of  the  vessels ;  at  least,  this  has  been  estab- 
lished by  Robin  and  Hiffelsheim,  in  the  microscopic  exami- 
nation of  the  flow  of  blood  under  electric  stimulus.  Onimus 
and  Legros  afterward  proved  that  these  movements  are 
governed  by  the  following  law :  The  descending  current 
dilates  the  vessels;  and  the  ascending  current  contracts 
them.  A  striking  experiment  proves  the  value  of  this  law : 
A  part  of  the  skull  of  a  vigorous  dog  is  removed,  so  as  to 
expose  the  brain.  The  positive  pole  of  a  pretty  strong 
battery  is  then  placed  on  the  exposed  brain,  and  the  nega- 
tive pole  on  the  neck.  The  slender  and  superficial  vessels 
of  the  brain  contract  visibly,  and  the  organ  itself  seems  to 
collapse.  Arranging  the  poles  in  the  contrary  order,  the 
reverse  is  remarked ;  the  capillary  vessels  swell  and  distend, 
while  the  substance  of  the  brain  protrudes  through  the 
opening  made  in  the  walls  of  the  skull.  This  experiment 
proves  the  possibility  of  increasing  or  lessening  at  will  the 
intensity  of  circulation  in  the  brain,  as  indeed  in  any  other 
organ,  by  means  of  electric  currents.  Onimus  lately  made 
an  equally  interesting  experiment.  Many  persons  know 
that  the  famous  physiologist  Helmholtz  introduced  into 
medicine  the  use  of  a  simple  and  convenient  instrument 
called  the  ophthalmoscope,  by  means  of  which  the  bottom 
of  the  eye  may  be  quite  distinctly  seen,  that  is  to  say,  the 
net  formed  by  the  nerve-fibres,  and  the  delicate  vessels  of 
the  retina.  Now,  on  examining  this  net,  while  the  head  is 
put  under  electric  influence,  the  little  blood-tubes  are  plainly 
seen  to  dilate  and  grow  of  a  more  lively  crimson. 

Let  us  now  study  the  effect  of  the  electric  current  on 
the  functions  of  the  motor  system,  and  on  sensibility.  Al- 
dini,  a  nephew  of  Galvani,  undertook  the  first  investigations 
of  this  kind  upon  human  beings.  Convinced  that  the 
proper  study  of  the  effects  of  electricity  on  the  organs  re- 


ELECTRICITY  AND  LIFE.  165 

quired  the  human  body  to  be  taken  at  the  immediate  in- 
stant after  the  extinction  of  life,  he  believed  he  would  do 
well,  as  he  relates  himself,  to  take  his  place  beside  the 
scaffold,  and  under  the  axe  of  the  law,  to  receive  from  the 
executioner's  hand  the  blood-stained  bodies  which  were  the 
only  really  suitable  subjects  for  his  experiments.  In  Jan- 
uary and  February,  1802,  he  availed  himself  of*the  occasion 
of  the  beheading  at  Boulogne  of  two  criminals,  whom  the 
government  willingly  gave  up  to  his  scientific  inquiry. 
Subjected  to  electric  action,  these  bodies  presented  so 
strange  a  sight  as  to  terrify  some  of  the  assistants.  The 
muscles  of  the  face  contracted  in  frightful  grimaces.  All 
the  limbs  were  seized  with  violent  convulsions.  The  bodies 
seemed  to  feel  the  first  stir  of  resurrection,  and  an  impulse 
to  spring  up.  For  several  hours  after  decapitation,  the 
vital  centres  of  movement  retained  the  power  of  answering 
to  the  electric  excitement.  At  Glasgow,  Ure  made  some 
equally  noted  experiments  on  the  body  of  a  criminal,  which 
had  remained  on  the  gallows  nearly  an  hour.  One  of  the 
poles  of  a  battery  of  270  pairs  having  been  connected  with 
the  spinal  marrow,  below  the  nape  of  the  neck,  and  the 
other  pole  touching  the  heel,  the  leg,  until  then  bent  back, 
was  forcibly  thrown  forward,  almost  oversetting  one  of  the 
assistants,  who  had  a  strong  hold  on  it.  Placing  one  of 
the  poles  on  the  seventh  rib,  and  the  other  on  one  of 
the  nerves  of  the  neck,  the  chest  rose  and  fell,  and  the  ab- 
domen underwent  the  like  motion,  as  in  the  act  of  breath- 
ing. On  touching  a  nerve  of  the  eyelid  at  the  same  time 
with  the  heel,  the  muscles  of  the  face  contracted,  "  rage, 
horror,  despair,  anguish,  and  fearful  grins,  combined  in  hid- 
eous expressions  on  the  dead  man's  face."  At  the  terrible 
sight  one  person  fainted,  and  several  were  obliged  to  leave 
the  room.  Afterward,  by  exciting  convulsive  movements 
of  the  arms  and  fingers,  the  corpse  was  made  to  seem  to 
point  to  one  or  another  of  the  spectators. 


166  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

Later  researches  have  precisely  fixed  the  conditions  of 
this  influence  of  electricity  upon  the  muscles.  Continuous 
currents,  led  directly  to  these  organs,  produce  contractions 
at  the  moments  of  opening  and  of  closing  the  circuits ;  but 
the  shock  produced  on  closing  is  always  the  strongest. 
While  the  continuous  current  is  passing,  the  muscle  re- 
mains persistently  in  a  half-contracted  state,  as  to  the  na- 
ture of  which  physiologists  disagree.  Influenced  by  ex- 
citements rapidly  repeated  and  prolonged  for  a  short  time, 
the  muscles  assume  a  state  of  contraction  and  shortening, 
like  that  seen  in  tetanus.  In  this  state,  as  Helmholtz  and 
Marey  have  shown,  the  muscle  suffers  a  repetition  of  very 
slight  shocks.  Contraction  is  the  result  of  the  fusion  of 
these  elementary  vibrations,  indistinguishable  by  the  eye, 
but  capable  of  recognition  and  measurement  by  certain 
contrivances.  Currents  of  induction  produce  more  power- 
ful contractions,  but  not  lasting  ones,  which  are  succeeded, 
if  electrization  is  prolonged,  by  corpse-like  rigidity.  Mus- 
cular contraction  effected  in  such  a  case  is  attended  by  a 
local  rise  in  temperature,  proportioned  to  the  force  and 
length  of  the  electric  action.  This  increase  of  heat  reaches 
its  maximum,  which  may  in  some  cases  be  four  degrees, 
during  the  four  or  five  minutes  following  the  cessation  of 
the  electric  impulse,  and  is  due  to  the  muscular  contrac- 
tion, which  always  gives  rise  to  disengagement  of  heat. 

The  effect  upon  the  nerves  is  very  complex,  and  be- 
trayed by  movements  and  sensations  very  variable  in  in- 
tensity. Onimus  and  Legros  state  in  general  its  funda- 
mental laws  thus :  In  acting  on  the  nerves  of  motion,  we 
see  that  the  direct  or  descending  current  works  more  en- 
ergetically than  the  other,  with  the  reverse  result  on  the 
nerves  of  sensation.  The  excitability  of  those  nerves  of  a 
mixed  kind  is  lessened  by  the  direct  and  increased  by  the 
inverse  current.  This  is  true  as  to  battery-currents,  but 
currents  of  induction  behave  differently.  While  the  sen- 


ELECTRICITY  AND   LIFE.  167 

sation  called  out  by  the  first  is  almost  insignificant,  the 
others,  besides  the  permanent  muscular  contraction,  pro- 
duce a  pain  lasting  as  long  as  the  nerve  retains  its  excita- 
bility. The  spinal  marrow  is  one  of  the  most  active  parts 
of  the  system.  In  the  form  of  a  thick,  whitish  cord,  lodged 
inside  the  vertebral  column,  it  constitutes  a  real  prolonga- 
tion of  the  brain,  of  which,  under  some  circumstances,  it 
takes  the  place.  The  unconscious  depository  of  a  part  of 
the  force  animating  the  limbs,  by  means  of  the  nerves  sent 
out  from  it,  it  transmits  to  them  their  direction  and  power 
to  move,  while  the  brain  is  unaware  of  its  action.  This 
takes  place  in  what  are  called  reflex  motions,  and  these 
occur  in  beheaded  animals,  through  the  simple  excitement, 
direct  or  indirect,  of  the  spinal  marrow.  Experiments  may 
be  cited,  showing  the  action  of  electricity  on  those  phe- 
nomena which  have  their  seat  in  the  spinal  marrow.  If  a 
frog  is  plunged  into  lukewarm  water,  at  a  temperature  of 
40°,  it  loses  respiration,  feeling,  and  motion,  and  would  die 
if  kept  in  it  a  long  time.  When  taken  out  of  the  water, 
and  placed  in  this  state  under  the  action  of  the  current,  it 
contracts  strongly  when  its  vertebral  column  is  electrified 
by  an  ascending  charge ;  but  no  motion  follows  if  the  de- 
scending current  is  applied.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the 
latter  is  sent  into  a  beheaded  animal,  stimulated  to  reflex 
motions,  by  the  excitement  of  the  spine,  it  tends,  as  ex- 
periment shows,  to  paralyze  these  motions.  In  general, 
this  is  the  law  discovered  by  Onimus  and  Legros — the  as- 
cending battery-current,  directed  on  the  spine,  increases  the 
excitability  of  that  organ,  and  consequently  its  power  of 
producing  reflex  phenomena ;  the  descending  current,  on 
the  contrary,  acts  in  the  reverse  way. 

When  the  brain  of  animals  is  directly  electrified,  the 
modifications  in  circulation  already  spoken  of  result,  but 
no  special  phenomena  are  observed.  The  animal  shows  no 
pain,  and  makes  no  movement,  experiencing  a  tendency 


168  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

toward  sleep,  a  sort  of  calm  and  stupor.  Some  physicians 
have  gone  so  far  as  to  propose  electrization  of  the  brain  as 
a  means  of  developing  and  perfecting  the  mental  powers. 
Nothing  hitherto  justifies  the  belief  that  such  a  course 
could  have  the  slightest  influence  for  good  over  the  func- 
tions of  thought.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  very  certain  that 
the  electric  agent  must  be  applied  only  with  extreme  cau- 
tion to  the  regions  of  the  head,  and  that  it  very  easily  oc- 
casions mischief  in  them.  A  strong  current  might  readily 
cause  rupture  of  the  vessels,  and  dangerous  haemorrhage  in 
consequence. 

Again,  electricity  stimulates  all  the  organs  of  sense. 
Directed  upon  the  retina,  it  excites  it,  producing  sensations 
of  glare  and  dazzling.  When  sent  through  the  organ  of 
hearing,  it  produces  there  a  peculiar  buzzing  noise,  and,  if 
brought  in  contact  with  the  tongue,  it  calls  forth  a  very 
characteristic  metallic  and  styptic  sensation.  And  in  the 
olfactory  mucous  membrane  it  creates  a  sneezing  irritation, 
and  also,  it  seems,  an  odor  of  ammonia. 

The  currents  not  only  act  on  the  cerebro-spinal  nerves, 
and  the  muscles  concerned  in  life,  as  related  outwardly,  but 
affect  also  the  parts  of  the  nervous  and  muscular  systems 
devoted  to  the  functions  of  nutritive  life.  Electricity  by 
induction,  applied  to  these  muscles,  causes  contraction  in 
them  at  the  point  of  contact  with  the  poles,  while  the  part 
situated  between  the  poles  remains  without  motion.  Con- 
tinuous currents  produce,  at  the  instant  of  closing  the  cir- 
cuit, a  local  contraction  at  the  junction  with  the  poles,  and 
then  the  organ  becomes  quiet;  if  it  is  previously  in  action, 
motion  ceases.  In  the  case  of  the  intestine,  for  instance, 
peristaltic  movement  is  checked ;  and  by  means  of  elec- 
tricity contractions  of  the  uterus  may  be  suspended  in  an 
animal,  during  parturition.  In  general,  the  fluid  suppresses 
spasms  of  all  the  involuntary  muscles. 

All   these   facts   relating   to  electric  action  upon  the 


ELECTRICITY  AND  LIFE.  169 

muscles  and  nerves  have  been  the  occasion,  particularly  in 
Germany,  of  laborious  investigations,  with  which  are  con- 
nected the  names  of  Du  Bois-Reymond,  Pfliiger,  and  Remak. 
The  doctrines  of  these  learned  physiologists,  regarding  the 
molecular  condition  of  the  nerves  in  their  various  modes  of 
electrization,  are  still  very  much  disputed.  It  must  be 
said  that  they  are  not  supported  by  any  experimental  cer- 
tainty, and  perhaps  the  ideas  developed  by  Matteucci  sup- 
ply better  means  for  the  general  solution  of  these  difficul- 
ties. This  eminent  experimenter  opposed  to  the  German 
theories  about  the  electrotonic  faculties  of  the  nerves  cer- 
tain evident  phenomena  of  electrolysis,  that  is,  of  chemical 
decompositions  effected  by  the  currents.  He  supposed 
that  the  modifications  of  excitement  in  the  nerves,  brought 
about  by  the  passage  of  electricity,  depended  on  the  acids 
and  the  alkalies  resulting  from  th'e  separation  of  the  salts 
contained  in  animal  tissues.  To  this  first  class  of  phenom- 
ena may  be  added  those  electro-capillary  currents  lately 
observed  by  Becquerel.  Here  must  be  sought  the  deeper 
causes  of  that  complicated  and  as  yet  obscure  mechanism 
of  the  strife  between  electricity  and  life. 

The  effects  of  electricity  on  plants  have  been  much  less 
studied,  experiments  made  on  this  subject  being  neither 
accurate  nor  numerous  enough.  We  know  that  electricity 
causes  contractions  in  the  various  species  of  mimosa,  par- 
ticularly in  the  sensitive-plant,  etc.  Becquerel  has  stud- 
ied its  action  on  the  germination  and  development  of  vege- 
tables. Electricity  decomposes  the  salts  contained  in  the 
seed,  conveying  the  acid  elements  to  the  positive  pole, 
and  the  alkaline  ones  to  the  negative.  Now,  the  former 
injure  vegetation,  while  the  latter  benefit  it.  Quite  lately 
the  same  experimenter  has  made  a  series  of  researches 
upon  the  influence  of  electricity  on  vegetable  colors.  Em- 
ploying strong  discharges  obtained  from  friction-machines, 
he  has  noticed  very  remarkable  alterations  of  color,  usuallv 


170  NATURE   AND  LIFE. 

due  to  the  rupture  of  the  cells  containing  the  coloring- 
matter  of  the  petals.  This  matter,  freed  from  its  cellular 
covering,  disappears  on  simply  washing  with  water,  and 
the  flower  becomes  almost  white.  In  leaves  showing  two 
surfaces  of  different  shades,  as  the  Begonia  discolor,  a  kind 
of  mutual  exchange  of  colors  between  the  two  surfaces 
has  been  noticed. 

II. 

The  physiological  phenomena  just  spoken  of  are  usually 
confounded  in  books  with  the  facts  of  electric  medical 
treatment,  and  it  seems  better  to  distinguish  the  two  class- 
es. The  true  method  consists  in  first  explaining  the  phe- 
nomena displayed  in  the  healthy  organism,  as  the  only  way 
of  understanding  afterward  those  that  are  peculiar  to  dis- 
orders. Electric  treatment  forms  a  group  of  methods  to 
be  classed  among  the  most  efficacious  in  medicine,  pro- 
vided they  are  applied  by  a  practitioner  well  trained  in  the 
theory  of  his  art.  Indeed,  the  most  thorough  physiologi- 
cal knowledge  is  essential  for  the  physician  who  would 
make  the  electric  currents  erviceable.  Mere  experimenting, 
even  the  most  sagacious,  must  here  be  barren  of  good  re- 
sults— a  fact  of  which  it  is  well  to  remind  those  who  im- 
pute to  the  method  itself  the  failures  it  meets  with  in  un- 
skillful hands.  It  is  true  that,  since  the  days  of  Galvani 
and  Volta,  physicians  have  used  galvanism  in  the  treat- 
ment of  many  diseases.  Early  in  the  century,  galvanic 
medicine  was  much  talked  of,  and  supposed  to  be  the  uni- 
versal panacea.  Galvanic  societies,  journals,  and  treatises, 
undertook  to  spread  its  usefulness.  The  fashion  lasted  a 
certain  time,  and  would  perhaps  have  growm  indifferent, 
when  the  discovery  of  induced  electricity,  due  to  Faraday, 
in  1832,  called  professional  attention  once  more  to  the  vir- 
tues of  the  electric  fluid,  and  led  to  a  new  and  interesting 
range  of  experiments.  Yet  it  is  likely  that  the  true  sys- 


ELECTRICITY  AND  LIFE.  171 

terns  of  electric  medical  treatment,  after  the  extraordinary 
illusions  of  their  earlier  days  had  vanished,  would  at  length 
have  sunk  into  disuse,  had  they  not  escaped  from  the  ruts 
of  empiricism.  With  its  usual  boldness,  it  had  at  first 
gained  them  a  high  rank,  which  it  had  no  power  to  main- 
tain. It  was  experimental  physiology,  with  its  exact  analy- 
sis of  the  mechanical  effects  of  this  fluid  upon  the  springs 
of  the  organism,  which  made  its  application  in  the  healing 
art  sure,  true,  and  solid,  as  it  now  is.  In  this,  as  in  all 
things,  blind  art  has  been  the  impulse  to  scientific  research, 
which  in  turn  steadily  enlightens  and  perfects  art. 

It  is  singular  that  induction  currents  have  met  with  much 
better  fortune  than  galvanic  ones.  The  latter,  the  use  of 
which  introduced  electric  treatment,  have  gained  real  im- 
portance in  physiology  and  medicine  only  within  a  few 
years,  and  after  the  reputation  of  induction  currents  was 
well  established,  thanks  chiefly  to  the  efforts  of  Duchenne. 
A  German  physiologist  and  anatomist,  Remak,  who  died 
six  years  ago,  was  the  first  to  urge  the  singular  remedial 
virtues  of  the  voltaic  current.  Remak,  after  devoting 
twenty  years  to  the  study  of  the  most  difficult  ques- 
tions in  embryology  and  histology,  undertook,  in  1854,  the 
systematic  examination  and  ascertainment  of  the  action  of 
continuous  currents  on  the  vital  economy.  He  soon  gained 
remarkable  dexterity  in  dealing  with  the  electric  agent, 
and  detecting  with  the  readiest  insight  the  proper  points 
for  applying  the  battery-poles  in  each  malady.  Those  who, 
with  us,  witnessed  in  1864  his  practice  at  the  hospital,  will 
remember  it  clearly.  The  methods  of  Duchenne  were  al- 
most the  only  ones  accepted  in  practice  in  France,  till 
Remak  came  to  prove  to  Paris  physicians  the  powers  of 
electrization  by  constant  currents,  in  cases  where  Faraday's 
currents  had  been  without  effect.  The  teaching  of  the 
Berlin  practitioner  bore  its  fruits.  A  rising  young  physi- 
cian, Hiffelsheim,  was  beginning  to  spread  throughout  Paris 


172  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

the  use  of  the  constant  current  as  a  healing  agent,  when 
death  removed  him  in  1866,  in  the  flower  of  his  age.  An- 
other physician,  who  benefited  by  the  lessons  of  Remak,  Oni- 
mus,  resumed  the  interrupted  labors  of  Hiffelsheim,  and  is 
now  busy  in  completing  the  system  of  the  methods  of  elec- 
tric medical  practice,  by  subjecting  them  to  an  exact  knowl- 
edge of  electro-physiological  laws.  A  few  instances,  from 
the  mass  of  facts  published  on  the  subject,  will  serve  to 
show  how  far  the  efficiency  of  these  methods  has  actually 
been  carried. 

Experiment  proves  that,  under  certain  conditions,  the 
electric  current  contracts  the  vessels,  and  thus  checks  the 
flow  of  blood  into  the  organs.  Now,  a  great  number  of 
disorders  are  marked  by  too  rapid  a  flow  of  blood,  by  what 
are  known  as  congestions.  Some  forms  of  delirium  and 
brain-excitement,  as  also  many  hallucinations  of  the  differ- 
ent senses,  are  thus  marked,  and  these  are  entirely  cured 
by  the  application  of  the  electric  current  to  the  head.  No 
organ  possesses  a  vascular  system  so  delicate  and  complex 
as  the  brain's,  nor  is  there  any  so  sensitive  to  the  action 
of  causes  that  modify  the  circulation.  For  this  reason, 
disorders  seated  in  the  brain  are  peculiarly  amenable  to 
electric  treatment,  and,  when  carefully  applied,  it  is  reme- 
dial in  brain-fevers,  mental  delirium,  headaches,  and  sleep- 
lessness. Physicians  who  first  employed  the  current  were 
quite  aware  of  this  benign  influence  of  the  galvanic  fluid 
over  brain-disorders,  and  even  had  the  idea  of  utilizing  it 
in  the  treatment  of  insanity.  Experiments  in  that  direc- 
tion have  not  been  continued,  but  the  facts  published  by 
Hiffelsheim  justify  the  belief  that  they  would  not  be  bar- 
ren. These  facts  testify  to  the  benefits  that  electric  cur- 
rents (we  mean  only  continuous  ones)  may  some  day  yield 
in  brain-diseases — -a  point  worth  the  attention  of  physicians 
for  the  insane.  Till  lately  it  was  thought  that  electricity 
was  a  powerful  stimulant  only,  but  what  is  true  of  interrupt- 


ELECTRICITY  AND   LIFE.  173 

ed  currents  is  not  true  as  to  currents  from  the  battery. 
Far  from  being  always  a  stimulant,  the  latter  may  become 
in  certain  cases,  as  Hiffelsheim  maintained,  a  sedative  and 
calming  agent.  This  control  over  circulation,  joined  with 
the  electrolytic  power  of  the  galvanic  current,  allows  its 
employment  in  the  treatment  of  various  kinds  of  conges- 
tions. A  congested  state  of  the  lymphatic  ganglia,  the 
parotid  glands,  etc.,  may  be  relieved  by  this  means,  the 
current  acting  in  such  cases  both  on  the  contractility  of 
the  vessels  and  the  composition  of  the  humors. 

In  cases  of  paralysis,  more  than  any  others,  electricity 
displays  all  its  healing  power.  Paralysis  occurs  whenever 
the  motor  nerves  are  separated  from  the  nervous  centres  by 
any  injuring  cause,  or  by  any  modification  of  texture  im- 
pairing their  sensitiveness.  With  a  destroyed  nerve,  pa- 
ralysis is  incurable,  but,  in  case  of  its  disease  only,  its  func- 
tions can  almost  always  be  restored  by  electric  treatment. 
As  there  is  always  some  degree  of  muscular  atrophy  in  the 
case,  electricity  is  directed  upon  the  nerves  and  the  muscles 
at  once,  and  the  battery  and  the  induction  current  are  usually 
employed  together.  As  a  rule,  the  first  modifies  the  gen- 
eral nutrition,  and  restores  nervous  excitability,  while  the 
last  stimulates  the  contractile  power  of  the  muscular  fibres. 
The  difference  of  action  between  the  two  kinds  of  currents 
is  clear  in  certain  paralyses  in  which  the  muscles  show  no 
contraction  under  induction  currents,  while  under  the  influ- 
ence of  constant  currents  they  contract  better  than  the  un- 
injured muscles.  Experiments  made  some  years  ago  in 
Robin's  laboratory,  on  the  bodies  of  criminals  executed, 
proved  that,  after  death,  muscular  contraction  can  still  be 
produced  by  Volta's  currents,  though  Faraday's  current 
has  no  such  effect. 

When  the  motor  nerves  are  in  a  state  of  morbid  excite- 
ment, they  compel  either  muscular  contractions  that  are 
lasting,  as  tonic  spasms,  or  intermittent  ones.  The  differ- 


174  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

ent  motor  nerves  most  commonly  excited  are  the  facial 
nerves,  the  nervous  branches  of  the  forearm  or  the  fingers, 
which  are  affected  in  "  writer's  cramp,"  1  and  the  branches 
of  the  spinal  nerve,  whose  irritation  occasions  tic-doulou- 
reux,  chronic  wryneck,  etc.  Now,  electricity  cures,  or  at 
least  noticeably  benefits,  these  different  morbid  states,  and 
exerts  the  like  influence  over  neuralgic  and  neuritic  affec- 
tions, wherever  these  disorders  are  not  the  symptoms  of 
other  deeper  maladies.  Currents  restore  the  normal  ac- 
tivity of  nutrition  in  the  diseased  nerves,  and  the  corre- 
sponding muscles  ;  they  act  on  rheumatism,  too,  in  the  most 
beneficial  way,  modifying  the  local  circulation,  quieting  the 
pain,  and  stimulating  reflex  phenomena,  which  are  followed 
by  muscular  contractions.  Erb,  Remak,  Hiffelsheim,  and 
Onimus,  have  proved  beyond  question  this  salutary  action 
on  swellings  of  the  joints,  either  in  acute  or  chronic  cases. 
The  discoveries  respecting  the  influence  of  electricity 
over  the  spinal  marrow  have  been  used  with  advantage  in 
the  treatment  of  such  disorders  as  arise  from  unduly-ex- 
cited activity  in  this  organ,  such  as  chorea,  St.  Vitus's  dance, 
hysteria,  and  other  nervous  convulsions,  more  or  less  simi- 
lar. We  cite  two  instances  of  this  sort  published  by  Dr. 
Onimus,  giving  an  idea  of  the  mode  of  applying  the  cur- 
rent in  such  cases.  A  child,  twelve  years  old,  was  seized 
with  a  frightful  attack.  Every  five  or  six  minutes  it  lost 
consciousness,  rolled  on  the  ground  ;  its  eyes  turned  upward, 
then  grew  so  rigid  that  none  of  its  limbs  could  be  bent. 
The  attack  over,  it  regained  its  senses,  but  the  least  im- 
pression, at  all  vivid,  sufficed  to  bring  on  a  new  attack. 
Ascending  currents  were  first  applied  to  the  spinal  mar- 
row. The  child  was  at  once  seized  with  a  violent  crisis. 

1  Writer's  cramp  consists  of  a  kind  of  spasm  of  the  finger-muscles, 
preventing  their  regular  contraction  in  holding  or  guiding  a  pen  or  play- 
ing the  piano,  while  the  muscles  of  the  hand  and  forearm  preserve  all 
their  normal  strength. 


ELECTKICITY  AND  LIFE.  175 

Descending  currents  were  then  used  for  fifteen  days  in 
succession,  after  which  the  little  patient  regained  health. 
A  young  girl  aged  seventeen,  in  hysteric  condition,  pre- 
sented very  strange  symptoms  in  the  larynx,  the  velum  of 
the  palate,  and  the  facial  muscles,  among  others  a  sort  of 
barking,  followed  by  vehement  sniffing  and  horrible  grim- 
aces. By  placing  the  positive  pole  in  the  patient's  mouth 
against  the  arch  of  the  palate,  and  the  negative  pole  on 
the  nape  of  the  neck,  all  these  morbid  affections  were  com- 
pletely subdued.  The  disposition  of  the  poles  in  the  re- 
verse order,  on  the  other  hand,  aggravated  them.  After 
sixteen  repetitions  of  electric  treatment,  the  young  girl 
was  almost  completely  cured,  retaining  only  a  muscular 
twitch  of  little  importance,  compared  with  her  former  ail- 
ments. Several  cases  of  tetanus  also  were  treated  with 
complete  success  by  similar  methods.  This  terrible  dis- 
ease, the  most  fearful  of  all  surgical  complications,  is  due  to 
an  acute  inflammation  of  the  spinal  marrow.  It  is  followed 
by  such  an  alteration  of  the  motor  nerves,  that  all  the 
muscles  of  the  body  experience  general  contraction,  and  a 
painful  rigidity  that  by  degrees  attacks  the  vitally  essential 
organs.  When  an  attack  of  this  kind  reaches  the  muscles 
of  the  chest  and  heart,  death  occurs,  through  asphyxia. 
In  such  a  case  the  continuous  current  restores  the  motor 
nerves  to  their  normal  state.  Two  other  chronic  diseases 
of  the  spine,  the  first  being  particularly  serious — progres- 
sive muscular  atrophy  and  locomotive  ataxy — often  yield 
to  the  rational  use  of  electricity,  or  at  least  are  checked  in 
their  progress,  the  natural  issue  of  which  is  death.  It  is 
worth  remarking  that  these  two  disorders  were  discovered 
and  described  by  Duchenne,  in  the  course  of  his  researches 
into  this  method  of  treatment.  Electricity  served  his  pur- 
poses of  diagnosis,  as  it  serves  in  physiology  as  a  means  of 
study,  taking  in  that  science  the  place  of  a  kind  of  reac- 
tive agent,  and  revealing  functional  differences  that  no 


176  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

other  process  could  have  detected.  To  it  alone,  according 
to  the  way  in  which  it  affects  a  nerve  or  a  muscle,  belongs 
the  power,  under  certain  circumstances,  of  determining  the 
nature  and  even  the  degree  of  alteration  in  nervous  or 
muscular  elements. 

Aldini  said  that  galvanism  afforded  a  powerful  means 
of  restoring  vitality  when  suspended  by  any  cause.  Several 
physicians,  at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  restored  life 
by  this  means  to  dogs,  after  they  had  undergone  all  the 
processes  of  drowning,  and  seemed  dead.  Halle'  and  Sue 
proposed  at  that  period  to  place  galvanic  machines  in  the 
different  quarters  of  Paris,  particularly  near  the  Seine.  This 
wise  and  useful  plan  has  not  yet  been  put  into  execution, 
though  all  experiments  made  since  that  time  confirm  the 
proof  of  the  efficiency  of  electricity  in  cases  of  asphyxia  and 
syncope,  produced  either  by  water  or  by  poisonous  gases. 
The  galvanic  current  also  restores  respiration  in  cases  of 
poisoning  by  ether  or  chloroform,  even  when  recovery  seems 
hopeless.  Surgeons  who  understand  this  effect,  remember 
it  whenever  chloroform  seems  dangerous  to  the  patient 
under  its  influence. 

Electricity  is  transformed  into  heat  with  great  ease. 
If  an  intense  current  is  passed  through  a  very  short  metallic 
wire,  it  heats,  reddens,  and  sometimes  vaporizes  it.  This 
property  has  been  taken  advantage  of  by  surgeons  for 
the  removal  of  various  morbid  excrescences.  They  intro- 
duce a  metallic  blade  at  the  base  of  the  tumors  or  polypi 
to  be  extirpated,  and  when  this  kind  of  electric  knife  be- 
comes incandescent,  under  the  influence  of  the  galvanic  cur- 
rent, they  give  it  such  a  movement  that  the  diseased  part 
is  separated  by  cauterization,  as  neatly  as  with  a  cutting 
instrument.  This  method,  which  avoids  effusion  of  blood, 
and  is  attended  by  only  slight  pain,  has  yielded  excellent 
results  in  the  hands  of  Marshall,  Middeldorpf,  Sedillot, 
and  Amussat.  Besides  this  application,  in  which  heat  plays 


ELECTKICITY  AND  LIFE.  177 

the  chief  part,  electricity  has  been  used  to  destroy  tumors, 
by  a  kind  of  chemical  disorganization  of  their  tissue. 
Crusell,  Ciniselli,  and  Nelaton,  have  made  decisive  experi- 
ments of  this  nature.  Pe"trequin,  Broca,  and  others,  sug- 
gest the  same  method  to  coagulate  the  blood  contained  in 
sacs,  in  aneurisms.  If  this  novel  surgery  is  not  so  widely 
known  and  used  as  it  deserves  to  be,  the  reason  is  that  the 
manipulation  of  electric  instruments  requires  much  practice 
and  dexterity,  and  surgeons  find  the  classic  use  of  the  scal- 
pel more  convenient. 

This  rapid  historical  view  shows  that  the  method  of 
treatment  by  electricity  is  useful  in  very  many  diseases. 
Whether  resorted  to  to  modify  the  nutritive  condition,  to 
quicken  or  check  circulation  in  the  small  vessels,  to  calm  or 
excite  the  nerves,  to  relax  or  stimulate  the  muscles,  to  burn 
or  detach  tumors,  electricity,  if  managed  rationally,  is  des- 
tined to  do  distinguished  service  in  the  healing  art.  The 
range  of  treatment  by  heat  is  less  considerable,  yefc  of  some 
extent.  The  examination  of  the  medical  value  of  treatment 
by  light  has  scarcely  begun,  nor  has  much  been  done 
toward  the  study  of  weight  or  pressure,  in  their  relations  to 
medical  science.  At  all  events,  there  is  now  forming  and 
gaining  increased  development,  alongside  of  the  medicinal 
use  of  bodies,  a  medicinal  use  of  forces — besides  the  physic 
of  drugs,  a  physic  of  powers.  It  is  impossible  to  say  at 
present  which  of  the  two  will  definitely  prevail — more  prob- 
ably both  will  be  called  on  to  render  valuable  services  tc 
art. 

The  first  savants  who  studied  the  action  of  galvanic  elec- 
tricity on  dead  bodies,  and  saw  them  recover  motion,  and 
even  an  appearance  of  sensation,  supposed  they  had  touched 
the  secret  of  life,  likening  to  the  vital  principle  that  other 
force  which  seems  to  warm  again  the  frozen  organs,  and  re- 
store their  springs.  Slight  reflection  on  the  facts  collected 
in  the  foregoing  pages  reveals  the  thorough  illusiveness  of 


178  NATURE   AND   LIFE. 

such  a  hope.  Not  only  is  electricity  far  from  being  the  whole 
of  life,  but  it  cannot  even  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  elements 
of  life,  or  be  compared,  for  instance,  with  nerve-force.  In 
fact,  the  experiments  of  Helmholtz  have  proved  conclusively 
that  such  a  comparison  contradicts  the  truth.  What  is  the 
peculiar  sign  of  the  vital  forces  and  of  vital  unity,  or  the 
definite  expression  of  their  simultaneous  action  in  one 
organism,  is,  precisely,  organization.  But  electricity  has 
no  causal  relation  with  organization  proper.  That  is  the 
work  of  some  higher  activity.  That  power  in  action,  what- 
ever it  be,  takes  to  itself  all  the  forces  of  Nature,  but  it 
links  them,  coordinates  them,  and,  fixing  them  into  special 
conditions,  compels  their  service  to  the  purposes  of  life. 
Gravitation,  heat,  light,  electricity,  all  these  forces  are 
maintained  within  living  beings — only  they  are  there  dis- 
guised under  a  new  phenomenal  unity,  just  as  the  oxygen, 
hydrogen,  carbon,  nitrogen,  and  phosphorus,  that  make  up 
a  nerve-cell,  vanish  in  it  into  a  new  unity  of  substance,  with- 
out ceasing  to  exist  in  it  as  distinct  chemical  elements.  The 
inorganic  powers  of  Nature  are  as  essential  to  life  as  lines 
and  colors  are  in  the  composition  of  the  painter's  picture. 
What  would  the  picture  be  without  the  painter's  soul  and 
labor  ?  The  picture  is  his  peculiar  work  :  the  physico-chem- 
ical forces  are  the  lines  and  colors  of  that  homogeneous  and 
harmonious  composition,  which  is  life.  In  it  they  would 
want  meaning  or  power,  if  they  did  not  in  it,  by  the  opera- 
tion of  a  mysterious  artist,  undergo  a  transformation  which 
raises  them  to  a  dignity  not  theirs  before,  and  assigns  their 
place  in  the  supreme  harmony.  Thus,  in  the  infinite  soli- 
darity of  things,  there  is,  as  Leibnitz  dreamed,  a  constant 
uprising  of  the  lower  toward  the  higher,  a  steady  progress 
toward  the  best,  a  ceaseless  aspiration  toward  a  fuller  and 
more  conscious  existence,  an  immortal  growth  toward  per- 
fection. 


ODORS  AND  LIFE. 

DESCAETES,  Leibnitz,  and  all  the  great  minds  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  believed  that  phenomena  are  such 
interdependent  parts  of  one  whole,  that  they  require  to 
be  explained  by  each  other,  and  consequently  that  a  very 
close  mutual  connection  should  be  maintained  among  the 
sciences.  In  their  view,  this  was  the  condition  of  rapid 
advance  and  intelligent  development.  The  experimental 
method,  constant  to  systematic  obstinacy  in  erecting  so 
many  barriers  between  the  different  sections  of  natural 
philosophy,  has  greatly  hindered  the  completeness  of  what- 
ever knowledge  we  possess  as  the  result  of  mutual  interac- 
tion among  all  truths.  At  this  day,  such  barriers  are  tend- 
ing to  vanish  of  their  own  accord,  and  the  science  of  man 
in  his  relations  to  external  media  begins  to  show  the  out- 
lines of  its  plan  and  harmony.  We  have  before  this 
sketched  several  of  its  chapters,  and  we  will  endeavor  now 
to  write  another,  on  the  subject  of  odors. 

I. 

The  seat  of  smell,  or  the  olfactory  sense,  is  the  pituita- 
ry membrane  lining  the  inner  wall  of  the  nostrils.  It  is  a 
mucous  surface,  laid  in  irregular  wrinkles,  and  receiving 
the  spreading,  slender,  terminal  filaments  of  a  certain 
number  of  nerves.  This  membrane,  like  all  other  mucous 
ones,  constantly  secretes  a  fluid  designed  to  lubricate  it. 


180  NATUKE  AND  LIFE. 

By  the  aid  of  the  muscles  covering  the  lower  part  of  the 
nostrils,  the  apparatus  of  smelling  can  be  dilated  or  con- 
tracted, precisely  like  that  of  sight.  This  understood,  the 
mechanism  of  olfaction  is  quite  simple.  It  consists  in  the 
contact  of  odorous  particles  with  the  olfactory  nerve. 
These  particles  are  conveyed  by  the  air  to  the  inside  of 
the  nasal  cavities,  and  there  strike  upon  the  sensitive 
fibres.  If  the  access  of  air  is  prevented,  or  if  the  nerve  is 
altered,  no  sensation  is  produced.  Experiments  in  physi- 
ology, in  fact,  have  settled  that  the  olfactory  nerves  (or 
those  of  the  first  pair)  are  assigned  exclusively  to  the  per- 
ception of  odors.  Loss  of  the  sense  of  smell  occurs  when- 
ever the  nerves  are  destroyed  or  injured  by  any  process, 
or  even  whenever  they  are  merely  compressed.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  a  matter  of  common  observation  that  im- 
peding the  passage  of  air  into  the  nostrils  is  quite  as 
effectual  a  way  of  making  any  sort  of  olfactory  sensation 
impossible.  Let  us  add  that  the  region  most  sensitive  to 
odors  is  that  of  the  upper  part  of  the  nasal  cavities.  There 
are,  as  we  shall  notice  in  proceeding,  considerable  differ- 
ences as  regards  the  degree  of  sensitiveness  in  this  sense 
of  smell,  comparing  one  man  with  another.  But  it  is  a 
still  more  singular  fact  that  sometimes,  without  apparent 
cause,  the  sense  is  utterly  wanting.  In  other  cases  it  is 
unaffected  by  the  action  of  certain  odors  only,  an  analo- 
gous infirmity  to  that  which  students  of  the  eye  call  dalton- 
ism, and  which  consists  in  the  perception  of  certain  colors 
only.  We  find  in  scientific  annals  the  case  of  a  priest  who 
was  insensible  to  all  odors  except  that  of  a  manure-heap, 
or  that  of  decayed  cabbage ;  and  another,  of  a  person  to 
whom  vanilla  was  entirely  without  scent.  Blumenbach 
speaks  too  of  an  Englishman,  with  all  his  senses  very  acute, 
who  perceived  no  perfume  in  mignonette. 

Olfaction  is  sometimes  voluntary,  sometimes  involun- 
tary.    In  the  former  case,  by  an  act  which  is  called  scent- 


ODORS  AND   LIFE.  181 

ing  something,  and  is  resorted  to  for  the  sake  of  a  keener 
sensation,  we  first  close  the  mouth,  and  then  sometimes 
draw  in  a  full  breath,  sometimes  a  succession  of  short, 
quick  inspirations.  Then  the  muscular  apparatus  edging 
the  opening  of  the  nostrils  comes  into  play,  to  contract 
that  orifice,  and  point  it  downward,  so  as  to  increase  the 
intensity  of  the  current  of  inhaled  air.  When,  on  the  con- 
trary, we  wish  to  smell  as  little  as  possible,  the  organ  be- 
comes passive.  We  effect  strong  expirations  by  the  nose 
to  drive  out  the  air  that  produces  scent,  and  inhalation, 
instead  of  being  performed  by  the  nostrils,  instinctively 
takes  place  through  the  mouth. 

Scents  and  the  sense  of  smell  have  an  important  share 
in  the  phenomena  of  gustation,  that  is,  there  is  a  close  con- 
nection between  the  perception  of  odors  and  that  of  tastes. 
Physiological  analysis  has  clearly  brought  out  the  fact  that 
most  of  the  tastes  we  perceive  proceed  from  the  combina- 
tion of  olfactory  sensations  with  a  small  number  of  gusta- 
tory sensations.  In  reality,  there  are  but  four  primitive 
and  radical  tastes — sweet,  sour,  salt,  and  bitter.  A  very 
simple  experiment  will  convince  us  of  this  fact.  If  we 
keep  the  nostrils  closed  when  tasting  a  certain  number  of 
sapid  substances,  so  as  to  neutralize  the  sense  of  smell,  the 
taste  perceived  is  invariably  reduced  to  one  of  the  four 
simple  savors  we  have  just  named.  Then,  whenever  the 
pituitary  membrane  is  out  of  order,  the  taste  of  food  is  no 
longer  the  same;  the  tongue  distinguishes  nothing  but 
sweet,  sour,  salt,  or  bitter. 

It  is  time  now  to  begin  the  study  of  the  physiological 
and  chemical  conditions  of  smell,  and  for  this  we  must  first 
inquire  how  odorous  substances  behave  with  regard  to  the 
medium  which  separates  them  from  our  organs.  Provost, 
in  an  essay  published  in  1799  on  the  means  of  making 
emanations  from  odorous  bodies  perceptible  to  sight,  was 
the  first  to  bring  to  view  the  fact  that  certain  odorous  sub- 


182  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

stances,  solid  or  fluid,  placed  on  moistened  glass,  or  in  a 
saucerful  of  water,  instantly  act  on  those  molecules  of  the 
liquid  which  they  touch,  and  repel  them  more  or  less,  pro- 
ducing a  vacuum.  He  judged  that  this  method  might 
serve  to  make  odors  sensible  to  sight,  and  enable  us  to  dis- 
tinguish odorous  from  inodorous  bodies.  These  move- 
ments of  odorous  bodies  on  the  surfaces  of  liquids,  of 
which  camphor  particularly  gives  so  curious  an  instance, 
have  lately  been  studied  with  the  greatest  care  by  a  French 
physiologist,  with  a  view  to  establishing  a  theory  of  odors. 
With  this  purpose  Liegeois  has  examined  most  of  the 
odoriferous  substances,  and  has  ascertained  that  almost 
all  of  them  perform  various  motions  of  circulation  and  dis- 
placement on  the  surface  of  water,  resembling  those  noted 
with  camphor.  Some  act  precisely  as  camphor  does. 
Among  these  are  benzoic  acid,  succinic  acid,  the  rind  of 
bitter  oranges,  etc.  With  others,  motion  soon  stops,  for 
they  are  quickly  surrounded  by  an  oily  film  which  keeps 
them  confined.  Some  must  be  reduced  to  powder  before 
the  phenomenon  takes  place.  As  regards  odorous  liquids, 
it  occurred  to  Lie*geois  to  saturate  very  light  and  spongy 
seeds,  themselves  odorless,  with  them,  and  he  then  found, 
on  throwing  the  seeds  on  water,  that  circulatory  and  dis- 
placing movements  took  place,  as  with  other  substances. 
He  concluded,  from  a  series  of  experiments  methodically 
tried,  that  the  motions  in  question  must  be  attributed,  not 
to  a  release  of  gas,  acting  in  the  manner  of  a  recoil,  but  sim- 
ply to  the  separation  and  rapid  diffusion,  within  the  water, 
of  the  odorous  particles.  The  volatility  of  substances  can- 
not be  admitted  to  have  any  part  in  explaining  the  phe- 
nomenon. It  depends  wholly  on  the  affinity  of  fluids  for 
the  odorous  particles,  and  also  for  those  of  fatty  matter. 
Liegeois  found,  for  instance,  that  a  drop  of  oil  put  on  the 
surface  of  water,  without  sensibly  lessening  in  size,  emits 
an  enormous  quantity  of  microscopic  droplets,  which  are 


ODORS  AND   LIFE.  183 

diffused  through  the  mass  of  the  water.  Aromatic  essences 
produce  a  like  effect.  Though  insoluble  in  water,  they  have 
a  powerful  tendency  to  disperse  themselves  throughout  it? 
and  water  that  receives  a  very  small  quantity  of  the  odor- 
iferous principle,  in  the  shape  of  extremely  fine  powder, 
has  enough  to  gain  their  perfume  completely.  Lie"geois's 
experiments  give  proof  of  the  most  diligent  labors  and  of 
praiseworthy  sagacity.  Science  has  accepted  them  with 
satisfaction,  and,  after  employing  them  usefully,  will  pre- 
serve the  memory  of  their  author,  taken  away  in  the  flower 
of  his  age,  at  the  outset  of  a  noble  career  as  a  physiologist 
and  surgeon. 

It  seemed,  to  quote  his  words,  as  though  in  these  ex- 
periments we  were  assisting  at  the  formation  of  the  odor- 
ous molecules.  Those  delicate  atoms  emitted  from  odorous 
substances  and  diffused  through  the  atmosphere,  are  in 
fact  the  very  same  that  impinge  on  our  pituitary  mem- 
brane, and  give  us  the  sensation  of  odors.  Moreover,  facts 
long  ago  observed  display  this  revealing  action,  so  to  call 
it,  of  water  upon  odors.  At  morning,  when  the  verdure  is 
moist  and  the  flowers  covered  with  sparkling  pearls  of 
dew,  a  fresher  and  balmier  fragrance  exhales  from  every 
plant.  It  is  the  same  after  a  light  shower.  Vegetation 
gains  heightened  tints,  at  the  same  time  that  it  diffuses 
more  fragrant  waves  of  perfume.  We  remark  an  effect  of 
the  same  kind  in  the  physiological  phenomenon  of  taste. 
The  saliva  serves  as  an  excellent  vehicle  for  diffusing  the 
odorous  principles ;  then  the  movements  of  the  tongue, 
spreading  that  fluid  over  the  whole  extent  of  the  cavity  of 
the  mouth,  and  thus  enlarging  the  evaporating  surface,  are 
clearly  of  a  kind  to  aid  the  dispersion  of  the  odorous  prin- 
ciples, which,  as  we  have  seen,  take  a  considerable  part  in 
the  perception  of  tastes. 

Now,  in  the  phenomena  of  smell,  air  acts   in  the  plaoe 
of  water.     It  seizes  the  odorous  particles  and  brings  them 


184  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

into  contact  with  the  pituitary  membrane.  It  is  the  vehi- 
cle, the  solvent,  of  those  extremely  subtile  atoms  which, 
acting  on  the  delicate  fibres  of  the  nerve,  produce  in  it  a 
special  movement,  which  translates  itself  into  the  most 
varied  sensations.  Oxygen,  and  the  existence  in  that  gas 
of  a  certain  proportion  of  odorous  molecules,  are  the  two 
essential  conditions  of  this  phenomenon. 

Such  is,  at  least,  the  result  of  earlier  experiments,  and 
of  those  performed  of  late  years  by  Nickles.  A  curious 
fact,  well  worthy  of  attention,  is  the  remarkable  diffusibility 
and  degree  of  subdivision  exhibited  by  some  odorous  sub- 
stances. Ambergris  just  thrown  up  on  the  shore  spreads  a 
fragrance  to  a  great  distance,  which  guides  the  seekers 
after  that  precious  substance.  Springs  of  petroleum-oil  are 
scented  at  a  very  considerable  distance.  Bartholin  affirms 
that  the  odor  of  rosemary  at  sea  renders  the  shores  of 
Spain  distinguishable  long  before  they  are  in  sight.  So, 
too,  every  one  knows  that  a  single  grain  of  musk  perfumes 
a  room  for  a  whole  year,  without  sensibly  losing  weight. 
Haller  relates  that  he  has  kept  papers  for  forty  years  per- 
fumed by  a  grain  of  amber,  and  that  they  still  retained 
the  fragrance  at  the  end  of  that  time.  He  remarks  that 
every  inch  of  their  surface  had  been  impregnated  by 
seal 0*6 4000  °^  one  gram  °f  amber,  and  that  they  had  per- 
fumed for  11,600  days  a  film  of  air  at  least  a  foot  in  thick- 
ness. Evidently  the  material  quantity  of  the  odorous  prin- 
ciple contained  in  a  given  volume  of  such  air  is  so  minute 
as  to  elude  imagination.  We  can  readily  conceive  how 
philosophers  cite  such  instances  to  give  a  notion  of  the 
divisibility  of  matter. 

In  fact,  we  are  now  considering  matter  emitted  by 
odorous  bodies.  This  shows  that  they  do  not  act  as  cen- 
tres of  agitation,  occasioning  vibrations  which  pass  in 
waves  to  our  organs,  to  exert  on  them  a  purely  dynamic 
influence.  This  giving  off  of  odorous  matter,  with  the  ne- 


ODORS  AND  LIFE.  185 

cessary  aid  of  oxygen  in  the  atmosphere,  proves,  too,  that 
odors  are  in  no  respect  comparable  to  light  or  heat,  which 
one  may  regard  in  an  abstract  way,  in  the  immaterial  and 
ethereal  space  which  is  the  region  of  their  motion,  as 
proper  forces,  and  acting  from  a  distance.  Odors,  to  be 
perceived,  must  be  taken  up  by  oxygen,  and  borne  by  it  to 
the  organ  of  smell.  In  a  word,  odor  is  the  odoriferous 
particle  itself,  while  light  is  not  the  light-giving  body. 

Does  oxygen  exert  a  chemical  influence  on  those  atoms 
of  which  it  robs  odorous  substances  ?  We  do  not  know, 
neither  do  we  know  of  what  kind  is  the  action  which  oc- 
curs on  the  contact  of  odor  with  the  olfactory  nerve, 
whether  the  phenomenon  is  a  mere  mechanical  agitation, 
or  whether  some  chemical  decomposition  takes  place  in  the 
case.  At  any  rate,  it  is  allowable  to  reason  from  the  ob- 
served facts  that  smell  and  taste  are  two  senses  peculiarly 
distinct  from  the  others,  as  well  with  respect  to  the  ob- 
ject of  sensation  as  to  the  ideas  which  the  mind  derives 
from  the  sensation  itself.  Sight,  touch,  and  hearing,  in  a 
manner  physical  senses,  furnish  us  the  ideas  of  external 
forms,  harmonies,  and  motions.  They  introduce  us  to  the 
conception  of  the  beautiful,  and  are  true  fellow-laborers 
with  the  intellect.  Taste  and  smell  are  rather  chemic 
senses,  as  Nickles  calls  them.  They  come  into  action  only 
upon  contact,  and  awake  in  us  only  such  sensations  as  life 
and  mind  gain  no  profit  from.  While  the  former  are  the 
spring  of  the  highest  functions,  the  latter  are  of  use  only 
for  the  performance  of  acts  of  nutrition. 

The  learned  and  capable  author  1  of  a  book  on  odors, 
published  within  a  few  years,  fancies,  however,  that  he  can 
establish  a  kind  of  aesthetics  of  odors,  more  or  less  resem- 
bling that  of  tones.  He  has  investigated  olfactory  harmo- 
nies, hoping  to  find  in  them  the  elements  of  a  sort  of  music. 
"  Odors,"  he  says,  "  seem  to  affect  the  olfactory  nerves  in 

1  Piesse,  on  "  Odors,  Perfumes,  and  Cosmetics." 
9 


186  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

certain  definite  degrees,  as  sounds  act  on  the  auditory 
nerves.  There  is,  so  to  speak,  an  octave  of  smells,  as  there 
is  an  octave  of  tones ;  some  perfumes  accord,  like  the 
notes  of  an  instrument.  Thus  almond,  vanilla,  heliotrope, 
and  clematis,  harmonize  perfectly,  each  of  them  producing 
almost  the  same  impression  in  a  different  degree.  On  the 
other  hand,  we  have  citron,  lemon,  orange-peel,  and  ver- 
bena, forming  a  similarly  associated  octave  of  odors,  in  a 
higher  key.  The  analogy  is  completed  by  those  odors 
which  we  call  half-scents,  such  as  the  rose,  with  rose-gera- 
nium for  its  semitone ;  '  petit-grain'  and  neroli,  followed  by 
orange-flower.  With  the  aid  of  flowers  already  known,  by 
mixing  them  in  fixed  proportions,  we  can  obtain  the  per- 
fume of  almost  all  flowers."  In  accordance  with  these  fan- 
cies, Piesse  has  formed  gamuts  of  odors,  parallel  with  musi- 
cal gamuts,  and  exhibiting  concords  of  scents  at  the  same 
time  with  those  that  produce  discords.  As  a  painter  blends 
his  tints,  the  perfumer  should  blend  his  fragrances ;  and 
Piesse  maintains  he  can  only  gain  that  object  by  following 
the  laws  of  harmony  and  contrast  in  odors.  This  theory  is 
certainly  quite  ingenious,  and  deserves  attention,  but  it  is 
open  to  serious  objections.  If  the  harmony  of  colors  and 
of  sounds  exists,  it  is  because  optics  and  acoustics  are  ex- 
act sciences,  and  harmony  in  this  case  is  reduced  to  nu- 
merical relations,  determined  in  a  positive  way.  These  re- 
lations, as  concerns  odors,  can  have  no  other  basis  than  a 
capricious  and  relative  sensibility.  They  are  thus  incapa- 
ble of  being  reduced  to  form,  a  fortiori  of  being  translated 
into  fixed  precepts. 

To  complete  these  details,  it  remains  to  say  something 
of  the  delusions  of  the  sense  of  smell;  for  this  sense,  like 
the  others,  has  its  aberrations  and  hallucinations.  The  de- 
lusions of  smell  are  hardly  ever  isolated  ;  they  accompany 
those  of  hearing,  sight,  taste,  and  touch,  and  are  also  less 
frequent  than  the  latter.  Insane  people,  who  are  affected 


ODORS  AND  LIFE.  187 

by  them,  complain  of  being  haunted  by  fetid  emanations, 
or  congratulate  themselves  on  inhaling  the  most  delicious 
perfumes.  Lelut  mentions  the  case  of  a  woman,  an  inmate 
of  la  Salpetriere,  who  fancied  that  she  constantly  perceived 
a  frightful  stench  proceeding  from  the  decay  of  bodies  she 
imagined  buried  in  the  courts  of  that  institution.  Impres- 
sions of  the  kind  are  usually  very  annoying.  Brierre  de 
Boismont  relates  the  account  of  a  woman  affected  by  dis- 
order of  all  her  senses.  Whenever  she  saw  a  well-dressed 
lady  passing,  she  smelt  the  odor  of  musk;  which  was  in- 
tolerable to  her.  If  it  were  a  man,  she  was  distressingly 
affected  by  the  smell  of  tobacco,  though  she  was  quite 
aware  that  those  scents  existed  only  in  her  imagination. 
Capellini  mentions  that  a  woman,  who  declared  that  she 
could  not  bear  the  smell  of  a  rose,  was  quite  ill  when  one 
of  her  friends  came  in  wearing  one,  though  the  unlucky 
flower  was  only  artificial. 

Such  facts  might  be  multiplied ;  but,  as  they  are  all 
alike,  it  is  not  worth  while  to  mention  more  of  them.  The 
latest  observations  made  in  insane-asylums,  among  others, 
those  of  M.  PreVost,  at  la  Salpetriere,  have  shown  also  that 
these  delusions  and  perversions  of  the  sense  of  smell  are 
more  common  than  had  hitherto  been  supposed  among  such 
invalids,  and  that  if  they  usually  pass  unnoticed,  it  arises 
from  the  fact  that  nothing  spontaneously  denotes  their  ex- 
istence. 

The  intensity  and  delicacy  of  the  sense  of  smell  vary 
in  mankind  among  different  individuals,  and  particularly 
among  different  races  of  men.  While  some  persons  are  al- 
most devoid  of  the  sense  of  smell,  others,  whose  history  is 
related  in  the  annals  of  science,  have  displayed  a  refine- 
ment and  range  in  the  distinction  of  odors  truly  wonderful. 
Woodward,  for  instance,  mentions  a  woman  who  foretold 
storms  several  hours  before  their  coming,  by  the  help  of 
the  sulphurous  odor,  due  probably  to  ozone,  which  she  per- 


188  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

ceived  in  the  atmosphere.  The  scientific  journals  of  the 
day  relate  the  account  of  a  young  American  girl,  a  deaf- 
mute,  who  recognized,  by  their  odor  alone,  i;he  plants  of 
the  fields  which  she  collected.  Numerous  instances,  more- 
over, prove  that  in  savage  races  this  sense  is  very  greatly 
more  developed  than  among  civilized  men.  It  is  a  travel- 
er's story,  that  some  tribes  of  Indians  can  pursue  their  ene- 
mies and  animals  of  the  chase  by  mere  scent. 

But  it  is  among  the  other  mammals  that  we  find  the 
sense  of  smell  displayed  in  its  highest  degree  of  power  and 
perfection.  Among  ruminants,  some  pachyderms,  and  par- 
ticularly among  carnivorous  mammals,  the  olfactory  mem- 
brane attains  the  keenest  sensitiveness.  Buffon  has  de- 
scribed these  animals  with  extreme  exactness,  in  saying  that 
they  smell  farther  than  they  see,  and  that  they  possess  in 
their  scent  an  eye  which  sees  objects  not  only  where  they 
are,  but  even  where  they  have  been.  The  peculiarity  of 
of  scent  in  the  dog  is  too  well  known  to  need  more  than  an 
allusion. 

If  we  can  hardly  give  faith  to  those  ancient  historians 
who  relate  that  vultures  were  attracted  from  Asia  to  the 
fields  of  Pharsalia  by  the  smell  of  the  corpses  heaped  to- 
gether there  after  a  famous  battle,  yet  we  must  accept  the 
assertions  of  naturalists  so  well  qualified  to  observe  as,  for 
instance,  Alexander  von  Humboldt.  The  latter  relates  that 
in  Peru,  and  other  countries  of  South  America,  when  it  is 
intended  to  take  condors,  a  horse  or  cow  is  killed,  and  that 
in  a  short  time  the  smell  of  the  dead  animal  attracts  a  great 
number  of  these  birds,  though  none  had  before  that  been 
seen  in  the  country.  Other  more  extraordinary  facts  are 
told  by  travelers.  These  must  usually  be  received  only 
with  the  greatest  caution,  because  in  most  cases  the  sense  of 
smell  gains  credit  for  what  is  due  to  the  sense  of  sight, 
which,  with  these  birds,  is  very  keen  and  far-reaching. 
Yet,  making  allowance  for  exaggeration,  it  must  be  admit- 


ODORS  AND  LIFE.  189 

ted  that  these  animals  have  a  very  highly-developed  sense 
of  smell.  Scarpa,  who  has  made  admirable  researches  on 
this  subject,  found  that  they  refuse  food  which  is  saturated 
with  odorous  substances,  and,  as  an  odd  instance,  that  a 
duck  would  not  swallow  perfumed  bread  till  after  it  had 
washed  it  in  a  poad.  The  waders,  which  have  the  largest 
olfactory  nerves,  are  also  those  birds  that  display  the  great- 
est keenness  of  scent.  Reptiles  have  very  large  olfactory 
lobes,  leading  us  to  believe  that  they  discern  odors  readily, 
but  at  present  we  know  little  of  the  impressions  they  are 
sensitive  to  in  this  respect.  Fish  also  have  an  olfactory 
membrane.  Fishermen  have  always  remarked  that  they 
may  be  attracted  or  driven  off  by  throwing  certain  odorous 
substances  into  the  water.  Sharks,  and  other  voracious  fish, 
collect  in  crowds  and  follow  from  very  far  about  a  body 
thrown  into  the  sea.  It  is  even  said  that,  when  blacks  and 
whites  are  bathing  together  in  latitudes  where  these  fish 
abound,  they  particularly  single  out  and  pursue  the  more 
strongly  odorous  blacks.  Nor  are  the  Crustacea  indifferent 
to  emanations  which  act  on  the  olfactory  nerve.  The 
method  used  for  attracting  and  taking  crabs  is  familiar. 

Regarding  the  lower  animals,  we  have  only  still  more 
uncertain  information,  except  as  to  insects.  Entomologists 
maintain  that  scent  is  very  delicate  in  most  insects,  and  rely 
on  plausible  conjectures  on  this  subject,  but  they  do  not  as 
yet  know  what  the  seat  of  the  sense  of  smell  in  insects  is. 
When  meat  is  exposed  to  the  air,  in  a  few  moments  flies 
make  their  appearance  in  a  place  where  none  had  before 
been  seen.  If  refuse  matter  or  bodies  of  animals  are  left 
on  the  ground,  insects  flock  to  them  at  once,  feeding  on 
such  substances,  and  depositing  their  eggs  in  them.  Scent 
alone  seems  to  guide  them,  exclusively  of  sight  even,  for, 
if  the  object  of  their  desire  is  hidden,  they  easily  manage 
to  find  it.  A  curious  fact  as  to  the  scent  of  insects  is  fur- 
nished by  those  kinds  that  prefer  decaying  substances.  A 


190  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

beautiful  arum  is  found  in  our  woods,  the  cuckoo-pintle, 
whose  white  flower  diffuses  a  disgusting  odor.  Now,  the 
inside  of  this  flower  is  often  filled  with  flies,  snails,  and 
plant-lice,  seeking  the  putrid  source  of  this  fetid  smell.  We 
may  see  the  little  creatures,  in  quest  of  their  food  or  of  a  fit 
place  to  lay  their  eggs,  move  about  in  all  directions,  and  quit 
most  unwillingly  the  flower  whose  scent  has  misled  them. 

II. 

Having  thus  learned  what  physiologists  think  of  the 
sense  of  smell  and  the  conditions  of  the  perception  of  odors, 
let  us  see  what  naturalists  and  chemists  have  ascertained 
respecting  the  latter  as  viewed  in  themselves,  what  place 
they  give  to  odorous  bodies,  and  what  character  they  at- 
tribute to  them  all.  The  three  kingdoms  possess  odors. 
Among  mineral  substances,  few  solids,  but  quite  a  number 
of  liquids  and  gases,  are  endowed  with  more  or  less  power- 
ful scents,  in  most  cases  not  very  pleasant  ones,  and  usually 
characteristic.  Those  odors  belong  to  simple  substances, 
such  as  chlorine,  bromine,  and  iodine  ;  to  acids,  as  hydro- 
chloric and  hydrocyanic  acid  ;  to  carburets  of  hydrogen,  as 
those  of  petroleum ;  to  alkaline  substances,  ammonia,  for 
instance,  etc.  The  odors  observable  among  minerals  may 
almost  all  be  referred  either  to  hydrocarbonic  or  hydrosul- 
phuric  gases,  or  to  various  solid  and  liquid  acids  produced 
by  the  decomposition  of  fats,  or  to  peculiar  principles  se- 
creted by  glands,  such  as  musk,  ambergris,  civet,  and  the 
like.  Vegetables  present  quite  another  variety  of  odors, 
from  the  faintest  to  the  rankest,  from  the  most  delicious  to 
the  most  disgusting.  Absolutely  scentless  plants  are  very 
rare,  and  many,  that  seem  to  be  so  while  they  are  fresh, 
gain,  on  drying,  a  very  decided  perfume. 

The  odor  of  plants  is  due  to  principles  very  unequally 
distributed  throughout  their  different  organs  ;  some  solid, 
as  resins  and  balsams ;  others  which  are  liquid,  and  known 


ODORS  AND   LIFE.  191 

by  the  name  of  essences  or  essential  oils.  In  most  cases 
the  essence  is  concentrated  in  the  flower,  as  occurs  with  the 
rose  and  the  violet.  In  other  plants,  as  in  bent-grass  and 
Florence  iris,  only  the  root  is  fragrant.  In  cedar  and  san- 
dal-wood, it  is  the  wood  that  is  so ;  in  mint  and  patchouli, 
the  leaves ;  in  the  Tonquin  bean,  the  seed ;  in  cinnamon, 
the  bark,  which  is  the  seat  of  the  odorous  principle.  Some 
plants  have  several  quite  distinct  fragrances.  Thus  the 
orange  has  three  :  that  of  the  leaves  and  fruit,  which  gives 
the  essence  known  by  the  name  of  "  petit-grain ;  "  that  of 
the  flowers,  which  furnishes  neroli ;  and,  again,  the  rind  of 
the  fruit,  from  which  essence  of  Portugal  is  extracted.  A 
great  number  of  vegetable  odors  belong  exclusively  to 
tropical  plants,  but  the  flora  of  Europe  furnishes  a  large 
proportion  of  them,  and  almost  all  the  essences  used  in  per- 
fumery are  of  European  origin.  England  cultivates  laven- 
der and  peppermint  largely.  At  Nimes,  gardeners  are  par- 
ticularly attentive  to  rosemary,  thyme,  petit-grain,  and  lav- 
ender. Nice  has  the  violet  for  its  specialty.  Cannes  ex- 
tracts all  the  essences  of  the  rose,  the  tuberose,  cassia  (the 
yellow  acacia),  jasmine,  and  neroli.  Sicily  produces  lemon 
and  orange ;  Italy,  bergamot  and  the  iris. 

What,  now,  is  the  chemical  nature  of  the  odorous  prin- 
ciples in  plants  ?  The  chemistry  of  to-day  reduces  almost 
all  of  them  to  three  categories  of  well-ascertained  sub- 
stances :  hydrocarburets,  aldehydes,  and  ethers.  We  will 
endeavor  to  give  a  clear  account  of  the  constitution  of 
these  three  kinds  of  substances,  and  to  mark  their  place  in 
the  register  of  science.  The  hydrocarburets  are  simple 
combinations  of  carbon  and  hydrogen,  as,  for  instance,  the 
petroleum-oils.  They  represent  the  simple  compounds  of 
organic  chemistry.  As  to  aldehydes  and  ethers,  their  com- 
position is  rather  more  complex ;  besides  carbon  and 
hydrogen,  they  contain  oxygen.  Every  one  knows  what 
chemists  mean  by  an  alcohol ;  it  is  a  definite  combination 


192  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

of  hydrogen,  carbon,  and  oxygen,  neither  acid  nor  alkaline, 
which  may  be  regarded  as  the  result  of  the  union  of  a 
hydrocarburet  with  the  elements  of  water.  Common  alco- 
hol, or  spirits  of  wine,  is  the  type  of  the  most  impor- 
tant series  of  alcohols,  that  of  the  mono-atomic  alcohols. 
Chemists  represent  it  by  the  formula  C2H6O,  to  indicate 
that  a  molecule  of  it  arises  from  the  union  of  two  atoms  of 
carbon  with  six  atoms  of  hydrogen  and  one  of  oxygen. 
Independently  of  the  alcohols,  which  are  of  great  number 
and  varying  complexity,  organic  chemistry  recognizes  an- 
other class  of  bodies,  of  which  vinegar  is  the  type,  and 
which  receive  the  name  of  organic  acids,  to  mark  their 
resemblance  to  mineral  acids,  such  as  oil  of  vitriol  or  aqua- 
fortis. Now,  every  alcohol,  on  losing  a  certain  amount  of 
hydrogen,  gives  rise  to  a  new  body,  which  is  called  an 
aldehyde ;  and  every  alcohol,  on  combining  with  an  acid, 
produces  what  is  called  an  ether.  These  rapid  details  allow 
us  to  understand  precisely  the  chemical  character  of  the 
essences  or  essential  oils  which  plants  elaborate  within  their 
delicate  tissue.  Except  a  small  number  among  them  which 
contain  sulphur,  as  the  essences  of  the  family  of  crucifers, 
they  all  present  the  same  qualitative  composition — carbon 
and  hydrogen,  with  or  without  oxygen.  Between  one  and 
another  of  them  merely  the  proportion  of  these  three  com- 
posing elements  varies,  by  regular  gradations,  but  so  as 
always  to  correspond  either  to  a  hydrocarburet,  or  to  an 
aldehyde,  or  to  an  ether.  In  this  case,  as  in  almost  the 
whole  of  organic  chemistry,  every  thing  is  in  the  quantity  of 
the  composing  elements.  The  quality  is  of  so  little  im- 
portance to  Nature,  that,  while  following  always  the  same 
laws,  and  constantly  using  the  same  materials,  she  can, 
by  merely  changing  the  ponderable  relations  of  the  latter, 
produce,  by  ni}Triads  of  various  combinations,  myriads  of 
substances  which  have  no  resemblance  to  each  other.  The 
strange  powers  of  the  elements  and  the  mysterious  forces 


ODORS  AND   LIFE.  193 

concealed  in  matter  make  themselves  known  to  us  in  a  still 
more  remarkable  phenomenon,  to  which  the  name  of  isom- 
ery is  given.  Two  bodies,  thoroughly  unlike  as  regards  their 
properties,  may  present  absolutely  the  same  chemical  com- 
position with  respect  to  quality  and  quantity  of  elements. 
"  But  in  what  do  they  differ  ?  "  it  may  be  asked.  They  differ 
in  the  arrangement  of  their  molecules.  Coal  and  the  dia- 
mond are  identical  in  substance.  Common  phosphorus  and 
amorphous  phosphorus  are  one  and  the  same  in  substance. 
Now,  the  odorous  principles  of  plants  offer  some  exceedingly 
curious  cases  of  isomery.  Thus  the  essence  of  turpentine, 
the  essence  of  lemon,  that  of  bergamot,  of  neroli,  of  juniper, 
of  savin,  of  lavender,  of  cubebs,  of  pepper,  and  of  gilly- 
flower, are  isomeric  bodies,  that  is,  they  all  have  the  same 
chemical  composition.  Subjected  to  analysis,  all  these 
products  yield  identical  substances  in  identical  proportions, 
that  is,  for  each  molecule  of  essence,  ten  atoms  of  carbon, 
and  sixteen  atoms  of  oxygen,  as  denoted  by  their  common 
formula,  C10H18.  We  see  how  these  facts  as  to  isomery 
prove  that  the  qualities  of  bodies  depend  far  more  on 
the  arrangement  and  the  inner  movements  of  their  minute 
particles,  never  to  be  reached  by  our  search,  than  on  the 
nature  of  their  matter  itself;  and  they  show,  too,  how  far 
we  still  are  from  having  penetrated  to  the  first  conditions 
of  the  action  and  forces  of  substances.  Among  odoriferous 
essences  placed  by  chemists  in  the  class  of  aldehydes  may 
be  named  those  of  mint,  rue,  bitter-almonds,  anise,  cummin, 
fennel,  cinnamon,  etc.  The  rest  are  ranged  in  the  great 
series  of  ethers,  which  vary  widely  in  complexity,  notwith- 
standing the  simple  uniformity  of  their  primary  elements. 

Such  is  the  chemical  nature  of  most  of  the  odorous 
principles  of  vegetable  origin.  But  chemistry  has  not 
stopped  short  with  ascertaining  the  inmost  composition  of 
these  substances ;  it  has  succeeded  in  reproducing  quite  a 
number  of  them  artificially,  and  the  compounds  thus  manu- 


194  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

factured,  wholly  from  elements,  in  laboratories,  are  abso- 
lutely identical  with  the  products  extracted  from  plants. 
The  speculations  of  theory  on  the  arrangements  of  atoms, 
sometimes  condemned  as  useless,  do  not  merely  aid  in  giv- 
ing us  a  clearer  comprehension  of  natural  laws,  which  is 
something  of  itself,  but  they  do  more,  as  real  instances 
prove  :  they  often  give  us  the  key  to  brilliant  and  valuable 
inventions.  Piria,  an  Italian  chemist,  who  was  employed 
in  Paris  in  1838,  was  the  first  who  imitated  by  art  a 
natural  aromatic  principle.  By  means  of  reactions  sug- 
gested by  theory,  he  prepared  a  salicilic  aldehyde,  which 
turned  out  to  be  the  essence  of  meadow-sweet,  so  delicate 
and  subtile  in  its  odor.  A  few  years  later,  in  1843,  Ca- 
hours  discovered  methylsalicilic  ether,  and  showed  that  it 
is  identical  with  the  essence  of  wintergreen.  A  year  after, 
Wertheim  composed  essence  of  mustard,  while  believing 
himself  to  be  making  only  allylsulphocyanic  ether.  These 
discoveries  produced  a  sensation.  Nowadays  the  chemist 
possesses  the  means  of  creating  many  other  natural  es- 
sences. Common  camphor,  essence  of  bitter-almonds,  that  of 
cummin  and  of  cinnamon,  which  are  aldehydes,  as  we  have 
seen,  may  be  prepared  without  camphor-leaves  or  almonds, 
without  cummin  or  cinnamon.  Besides  these  ethers  and  al- 
dehydes whose  identity  with  essences  of  vegetable  origin 
has  been  proved,,  there  exist,  among  the  new  bodies  known 
to  organic  chemistry,  a  certain  number  of  products  formed 
by  the  union  of  common  alcohol  or  amylic  alcohol  with 
different  acids,  that  is  to  say,  of  ethers,  which  have  aromatic 
odors  more  or  less  resembling  those  of  some  fruits,  but  as 
to  which  it  cannot  yet  be  affirmed  that  the  odors  are  due  to 
the  same  principles  in  both  cases.  However  this  may  be, 
perfumers  and  confectioners,  more  industrious  and  wide- 
awake than  chemists,  immediately  made  good  use  of 
these  properties.  Artificial  aromatic  oils  made  their  first 
appearance  at  the  World's  Fair  of  London  in  1851.  There 


ODORS  AND   LIFE.  195 

was  there  exhibited  a  pear-oil,  diffusing  a  pleasant  smell 
like  that  of  a  jargonel,  and  employed  to  give  an  aroma  to 
bonbons.  This  product  is  nothing  else  than  a  solution  of 
amylacetic  ether  in  alcohol.  Apple-oil  was  exhibited  be- 
side the  pear-oil,  having  the  fragrance  of  the  best  rennets, 
and  produced  by  dissolving  amylvaleric  ether  in  alcohol. 
The  commonest  essence  was  that  of  pineapple,  which  is 
nothing  else  than  ordinary  butyric  ether.  There  was  ob- 
served, too,  an  essence  of  cognac,  or  grape-oil,  used  to  im- 
part to  poor  brandies  the  highly-prized  aroma  of  cognac. 
The  product  which  was  then,  and  still  is,  the  most  impor- 
tant article  of  manufacture,  is  the  essence  of  "  mirbane," 
which  very  closely  resembles  in  its  odor  that  of  bitter-al- 
monds, and  which  commerce  very  often  substitutes  for  the 
latter.  Essence  of  mirbane  is  nothing  else  than  nitroben- 
zine,  which  results  from  the  action  of  nitric  acid  on  ben- 
zine. Benzine,  in  turn,  is  met  with  among  the  products  of 
distillation  of  tar,  which  also  yield  the  substances  used  in 
preparing  those  beautiful  colors  called  aniline.  Besides 
the  essences  we  have  just  mentioned,  which  are  gaining  an 
increasing  importance  in  the  manufacturing  arts,  artificial 
essences  of.  quinces  are  also  prepared,  and  essences  of 
strawberries,  of  rum,  etc.  All  these  preparations  serve,  it 
must  be  admitted,  to  give  an  aroma  to  the  cordials,  confec- 
tioneries, and  sweetmeats,  which  are  so  largely  sold  now- 
adays. In  other  words,  the  products  of  industry  are  con- 
stantly and  in  a  greater  degree  taking  the  place  of  those"  of 
Nature.  In  all  these  cases,  these  instances  of  composition 
of  odorous  principles  are  among  the  finest  triumphs  of  or- 
ganic chemistry.  The  creative  power  of  the  chemist  is  ever 
widening  its  range.  After  the  labors  of  Piria,  Wertheim, 
and  Cahours,  came  those  of  Berthelot,  who  has  imitated 
the  fatty  matters  of  the  animal  economy.  We  are  at  this 
moment  in  progress  toward  the  artificial  manufacture  of 
sugar.  If  we  succeed  in  that,  nothing  more  will  remain 


196  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

but  to  effect  the  composition  of  albuminous  substances,  in 
order  to  give  us  the  complete  mastery  of  the  processes  which 
Nature  follows  in  her  elaboration  of  immediate  principles. 
That  gift  of  making  its  object  a  reality,  which  is  the  peculiar 
privilege  of  chemistry,  is  also  one  of  the  strongest  argu- 
ments to  bring  in  proof  of  the  absoluteness  of  those  laws 
which  we  ascertain  respecting  the  system  of  forces  external 
to  us. 

Linnaeus,  whose  mind  was  remarkably  analytical  and 
classifying,  not  only  arranged  vegetables  and  animals  in 
order,  but  also  classified  diseases,  and  even  odors.  He 
refers  the  latter  to  seven  classes :  aromatic  odors,  such 
as  that  of  laurel-leaves ;  fragrant,  like  those  of  lilies  and 
jasmine ;  ambrosial,  such  as  amber,  musk,  etc. ;  garlicky, 
like  that  of  garlic ;  fetid  odors,  like  those  of  the  goat,  the 
orage,  and  others;  disgusting  odors,  as  those  of  many 
plants  of  the  solaneae  order;  and,  last  of  all,  nauseous 
odors.  The  terms  of  Linnseus  have  generally  become  cur- 
rent in  language,  but  we  understand,  of  course,  that  their 
value  is  merely  conventional.  As  we  have  said  before, 
there  is  no  standard  for  the  comparison  of  odors.  We  can 
only  describe  them  by  making  comparisons  between  them, 
according  to  the  degrees  of  resemblance  existing  between 
the  impressions  with  which  they  affect  our  olfactory  mem- 
brane. They  have  no  qualities  capable  of  being  rigorous- 
ly defined.  This  is  the  reason  why  it  is  impossible  to  give 
them  any  natural  classification. 

III. 

The  sensations  produced  by  smells  are  perceived  and 
judged  of  in  a  great  variety  of  ways,  though  with  less  dif- 
ference than  prevails  as  to  tastes.  "  I  have  seen  a  man," 
says  Montaigne,  "  fly  from  the  smell  of  apples  quicker  than 
from  a  cannonade."  The  instance  he  alludes  to  in  this 
passage  is  that  of  Quercet,  Francis  I.'s  secretary,  who  rose 


ODORS  AND  LIFE.  197 

from  table  and  took  flight  whenever  he  saw  apples  upon 
it.  History  tells  us  that  Louis  XIV.  could  not  bear  per- 
fumes. Gre"try  was  greatly  annoyed  by  the  odor  of  roses  ; 
that  of  .a  hare  caused  Mdlle,  Contat  to  faint.  Odors  which 
disgust  us,  like  that*of  asafcetida  and  of  the  valerian-root, 
are  on  the  contrary  highly  enjoyed  by  the  Orientals,  who 
use  these  substances  for  condiments.  Among  other  singu- 
lar instances  related  by  Cloquet  on  this  subject,  we  will 
mention  that  of  a  young  girl  who  took  the  greatest  delight 
in  inhaling  the  scent  of  old  books,  and  that  of  a  lawyer  to 
whom  the  exhalations  of  a  dunghill  yielded  the  most 
agreeable  sensations.  So  that  it  is  out  of  our  power  to  fix 
general  rules  with  respect  to  the  influence  of  odors  on  our 
organs,  and  the  character  of  the  sensations  which  they  ef- 
fect in  us ;  still,  from  a  purely  physiological  point  of  view, 
it  is  certain  that  some  of  them  exercise  a  uniform  influence. 
Chardin  and  other  travelers  mention  that,  when  musk-hunt- 
ers take  from  the  animal  the  pouch  containing  musk,  they 
must  have  the  nose  and  mouth  covered  by  a  cloth  doubled 
in  several  folds,  if  they  would  escape  violent  haemorr- 
hage. 

The  smell  of  the  lily,  the  narcissus,  the  tuberose,  the 
violet,  the  rose,  the  elder,  etc.-,  when  it  reaches  a  certain 
point  of  concentration,  usually  exerts  an  injurious  influence 
on  the  system.  It  occasions  more  or  less  severe  headaches, 
fainting-fits,  and  sometimes  even  more  serious  disorders. 
Some  odors  which  have  an  agreeable  perfume  in  a  state  of 
considerable  diffusion,  gain  when  concentrated  a  noxious 
and  sometimes  dangerous  smell.  This  is  particularly  true 
of  civet,  patchouli,  and  the  essences  of  neroli  and  thyme. 
Scientific  records  mention  several  cases  of  death  occasioned 
by  the  poisonous  action  of  some  odorous  emanations.  It 
has  been  remarked  that  plants  of  the  family  of  labiates, 
such  as  sage,  rosemary,  etc.,  offer  in  this  respect  no  sort  of 
risk,  and  seem  rather  to  possess  wholesome  properties.  Yet 


198  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

it  is  of  consequence  at  this  point  to  distinguish  between 
the  action  of  the  odor  which  is  in  a  manner  purely  dynamic^ 
the  intoxication  from  the  essence,  and  the  effect  of  carbonic 
acid  thrown  Off  by  plants.  These  three  influences  have 
often  been  confounded  by  authors  who  have  recorded  ac- 
cidents occurring  after  the  more  or  less  prolonged  inhala- 
tion of  odoriferous  air. 

This  variable  action  of  odors  on  the  nervous  system, 
sometimes  wholesome,  sometimes  noxious,  explains  the 
part  they  have  always  played  in  the  various  circumstances 
of  life  among  mankind.  It  would  need  a  volume  to  relate 
the  religious,  political,  economic,  and  gallant  history  of 
odors  and  perfumes.  We  must  be  content  here  with  notic- 
ing its  chief  lessons,  as  far  as  they  are  connected  with  the 
physiological  theory  which  is  the  basis  of  this  study.  For 
there  is  unquestionably  something  instinctive  at  the  bot- 
tom of  these  general  and  uniform  customs,  which  exhibit 
the  affinity  of  man  for  odors.  Doubtless  we  must  recognize 
in  this  rather  a  refinement  of  sensuality  than  a  natural  crav- 
ing ;  but  the  same  result  has  occurred  in  this  case  as  in  the 
instance  of  beverages,  of  music,  etc.  Habit  has  become  in 
some  sort  a  second  nature ;  the  senses  have  acquired  a 
taste  for  that  especial  intoxication  which  beguiles  them, 
and  disguises  painful  realities  for  them. 

It  is  in  religion,  in  the  first  place,  that  we  observe  the 
use  of  perfumes.  Nothing  holy  or  lofty  was  conceived  of 
in  which  their  influence  was  not  present.  Perfumes  won 
the  gods  to  give  ear  to  the  vows  addressed  to  them  in 
temples,  where  burning  incense  diffused  its  fragrant  clouds. 
From  the  highest  antiquity  we  find  that  the  priests  of  dif- 
ferent religions  availed  themselves  of  the  use  of  odoriferous 
substances.  Five  times  a  day  the  disciples  of  Zoroaster 
laid  perfumes  upon  the  altar  where  the  sacred  flame  glowed. 
Moses,  in  Exodus,  recorded  the  composition  of  two  per- 
fumes used  in  rituals.  The  Greeks  assigned  a  leading  place 


ODORS  AND  LIFE.  199 

to  odors  in  their  ingenious  fictions  of  theology.  They  be- 
lieved that  the  gods  always  declare  their  presence  by 
an  ambrosial  fragrance,  as  Virgil  tells  us,  in  speaking  of 
Venus ;  1  and  Moschus,  describing  Jupiter  transformed  to  a 
bull.  The  use  of  perfumes  in  religious  ceremonies  had  for 
its  purpose  the  excitement  of  a  sort  of  intoxication  in  the 
priests  and  priestesses,  and  also  to  disguise  the  smell  of 
blood  and  of  decaying  matters,  the  offal  of  the  sacrifices. 
The  Christian  religion  borrowed  from  paganism  the  use  of 
perfumes  in  the  rites  of  worship.  There  was  even  a  period 
at  which  the  Church  of  Rome  owned  estates  in  the  East 
devoted  exclusively  to  plantations  of  trees  yielding  balsamic 
resins. 

Besides  these  uses,  odors  were,  in  old  times,  still  oftener 
employed  in  private  life.  Nothing  surprises  us  more,  in  read- 
ing the  ancient  authors,  than  their  relations  on  this  subject. 
Among  the  Jews,  the  use  of  perfumes  was  restrained 
within  proper  limits,  by  the  regulations  of  the  Mosaic 
laws,  which  consecrated  them  to  worship.  But,  with  the 
Greeks,  it  reached  an  extraordinary  height  and  refinement. 
They  kept  their  robes  in  perfumed  chests.  They  burned 
aromatic  substances  during  their  banquets;  they  scented 
their  wines ;  they  covered  their  heads  with  fragrant  es- 
sences at  their  festivals.  At  Athens,  the  perfumers  had 
shops  which  were  places  for  public  resort.  Apollonius,  a 
scholar  of  Theophilus,  left  a  treatise  on  perfumes  which 
proves  that,  even  as  regards  the  extraction  of  essences, 
the  Greeks  had  attained  astonishing  perfection.  Neither 
Solon's  laws  nor  Socrates's  rebukes  could  check  the  prog- 
ress of  that  passion.  The  Romans  inherited  it  from 
Greece,  and  enlarged  the  stock  of  Eastern  perfumes  by 
those  of  Italy  and  Gaul.  They  used  them  profusely  to  give 

1  "  Then,  as  the  goddess  turned,  a  rosy  glow 

Flushed  all  her  neck,  and  from  her  head  the  locks 
Ambrosial  breathed  celestial  fragrance  round." 


200  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

fragrance  to  their  baths,  their  rooms,  their  beds,  and  their 
drinks.  They  poured  them  on  the  heads  of  guests.  The 
awning  shielding  the  amphitheatre  was  saturated  with 
scented  water  which  dripped,  like  a  fragrant  rain,  on  the 
spectators'  heads.  The  very  Roman  eagles  were  anointed 
with  the  richest  perfumes  before  battle.  At  the  funeral  of 
his  wife  Poppaea,  Nero  burned  on  the  pyre  more  incense 
than  Arabia  yielded  in  a  whole  year.  It  is  related,  too, 
that  Plancius  Plancus,  proscribed  by  the  triumvirs,  was 
betrayed  by  the  perfumes  he  had  used,  and  thus  discovered 
to  the  soldiers  sent  to  pursue  him.  Besides  the  odors  ex- 
tracted from  mint,  marjoram,  and  the  violet,  which  were 
the  most  common,  the  ancients  made  much  use  of  the  roses 
of  Psestum,  and  various  aromatic  substances,  such  as  spike- 
nard, megalium,  cinnamon,  opobalsamum,  etc. 

It  is  singular  to  notice  that  the  use  of  perfumes,  brought 
from  Rome  with  Grecian  manners,  was  in  its  turn  conveyed 
to  France  and  Northern  Europe  with  Latin  manners, 
and  chiefly  by  the  Romish  religion.  It  is  from  religious 
rites,  indeed,  that  it  passed  into  ceremonies  of  state,  and 
thence  into  private  life.  Among  the  presents  sent  by  Ha- 
roun-al-Raschid  to  Charlemagne  were  many  perfumes.  In 
the  middle  ages,  among  princes  and  men  of  highest  rank, 
they  washed  their  hands  with  rose-water,  before  and  after 
eating;  some  even  had  fountains  from  which  aromatized 
waters  flowed.  At  this  period,  too,  it  was  the  custom  to 
carry  the  dead  to  their  burial-place  with  uncovered  face, 
and  to  place  little  pots  full  of  perfumes  in  the  coffin.  The 
French  monarchy  always  showed  an  unrestrained  passion 
for  enjoyments  of  this  nature,  which  seemed  created  as 
a  necessary  attendant  upon  all  others.  Marshal  Riche- 
lieu so  extravagantly  indulged  his  passion  for  perfumes 
under  every  form,  that  he  lost  the  perception  of  them,  and 
lived  habitually  in  an  atmosphere  so  loaded  with  scents, 
that  it  made  his  visitors  ill.  Madame  Tallien,  coming  from 


ODORS  AND  LIFE.  201 

a  bath  of  juice  of  strawberries  and  raspberries,  used  to  be 
gently  rubbed  with  sponges  saturated  with  perfumed  milk. 
Napoleon  I.  every  morning  poured  eau-de-Cologne,  with 
his  own  hands,  over  his  head  and  shoulders. 

IV. 

Above  all  these  questions  which  we  have  just  skimmed, 
there  rises  another,  of  a  graver  and  more  mysterious  kind, 
one  which  occurs  at  the  end  of  all  studies  that  treat  of 
sensation,  and  with  regard  to  which  some  reflections  will 
not  be  out  of  place  here.  To  what,  outside  of  us,  do  those 
sensations  which  we  experience  within  us  correspond? 
What  relation  is  there  between  the  real  world  and  that  im- 
age of  the  world  shadowed  in  our  soul  ?  In  the  special  case 
we  are  concerned  with,  what  is  it  in  these  substances  which 
is  the  cause  why  they  affect  our  sense  of  smell  ?  It  seems 
certain,  in  the  first  place,  that  odor  in  itself,  so  far  as  it  is 
odor,  is  a  mere  figment  of  our  mind.  Contemporaneous 
physiology  proves  that  excitement  of  the  nerves  of  sensa- 
tion is  followed,  in  each  one,  by  the  sensation  that  corre- 
sponds with  each.  When  we  electrify  the  eye,  we  call  up 
in  it  an  appearance  of  light ;  when  we  electrify  the  tongue, 
we  produce  in  it  a  sensation  of  taste ;  when  we  electrify 
the  inside  of  the  ear,  we  provoke  in  it  the  effect  of  a  sound. 
So,  too,  a  similar  excitement,  electric  or  otherwise,  of  the 
olfactory  nerves,  creates  in  our  mind  the  sensation  of  smell, 
even  though  no  odorous  molecule  takes  part  in  the  phenom- 
enon. Sensation,  therefore,  seems  to  depend  chiefly  on 
the  nature  of  the  sensitive  nerve.  The  external  world 
seems  to  contribute  to  it  only  by  setting  in  motion  the 
nerve-fibres.  Even  this  condition  of  an  impulse  infringing 
from  without  is  not  indispensable,  since  in  sleep,  and  in 
madness,  we  experience  sensations  of  smell  which,  by  the 
testimony  of  our  other  senses,  answer  to  no  external  agent. 
Still,  we  believe  that  we  can  distinguish  cases  of  hallucina- 


202  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

tion  from  cases  of  true  perception ;  still,  we  maintain  that 
there  are,  outside  of  ourselves,  distinct  causes  of  our  dis- 
tinct sensations.  No  skepticism  has  prevailed,  nor  will 
prevail,  against  this  testimony  of  the  most  powerful  evi- 
dence which  exists  in  our  inmost  being.  How  can  we  ac- 
count for  this  apparent  contradiction  ?  In  reality,  there  is 
no  contradiction.  Observe,  indeed,  that  even  if  the  most 
-indifferent  causes  can  effect  in  us  one  and  the  same  sensa- 
tion, and  thus  delude  us  as  to  the  outer  world,  our  soul  is 
never  cheated.  It  knows  perfectly  well  how  to  refer  this 
one  sensation  to  the  dissimilar  objective  causes  which  have 
effected  it ;  in  other  words,  the  causes  which  are  alike,  and 
are  confused  in  one  in  the  purely  physiological  act  of  sen- 
sation, divide  and  grow  distinct  in  the  psychological  act  by 
which  the  soul  recognizes  them,  and  conceives  them  as  dif- 
ferent. If  we  had,  to  give  us  knowledge,  only  the  dull  and 
ignorant  passivity  of  our  senses,  there  would  be  no  separate 
reality  for  us ;  but  the  wise  activity  of  the  soul  cannot 
merely  assert  the  reality  of  outward  objects,  for  a  reason 
similar  to  that  which  makes  it  assert  its  own  existence — 
it  can,  still  further,  argue  from  its  various  modes  of  affection 
to  a  corresponding  variety  of  external  forces.  It  moves 
in  harmony  with  the  world,  rather  than  in  harmony  with 
the  senses.  In  presence  of  the  latter,  it  is  like  a  good 
prince,  who  would  be  nothing  without  his  subjects,  but 
who  regulates  and  civilizes  them,  by  giving  them  laws, 
and  ruling  their  morals.  Thus,  and  this  is  the  conclusion 
at  which  we  aim,  it  is  in  the  soul,  regarded  as  the  focus  of 
all  those  rays  refracted  through  the  senses,  as  the  central 
light  outshining  all  others,  that  we  must  set  the  power  and 
the  right  to  discern  what  the  senses  do  not  discern,  and  to 
pierce  to  a  depth  forever  beyond  their  reach.  We  shall 
never  know  what  relation  there  is  between  the  outward 
world  and  those  images  of  it  which  we  perceive,  but 
the  soul  can  hold  the  unshaken  belief  that  the  various 


ODORS  AND   LIFE.  203 

points  of  those  images  correspond  to  points  in  the  outward 
world  situated  in  a  like  order,  and  that  the  forces  which 
affect  it  are,  in  their  essence,  of  the  same  nature  as  those 
forces  of  which,  in  its  inmost  depths,  it  feels  itself  the 
lord. 


MEDICAMENTS  AND  LIFE. 

To  indulge  doubts  as  to  the  healing  art,  is  not  to  incur 
the  reproach  of  ignorance.  That  sort  of  skepticism  is  the 
more  warranted  because  many  physicians  freely  admit  that 
they  have  no  very  confident  faith  in  the  certainty  of  their 
art,  and  assert  its  illusions  and  its  inefficiency  complacently 
enough,  even  when  they  do  not  go  so  far  as  to  deny  the 
possibility  of  ever  constructing  a  completely  scientific  sys- 
tem of  remedial  methods.  The  truth  is,  that  medicine  may 
be  summed  up  as  the  application  of  certain  sciences.  When- 
ever these  sciences  make  advances,  that  art  should  do  so 
also,  and  in  as  clearly  unquestionable  a  manner.  The  fu- 
ture development  of  the  healing  art  will  consist  in  preserv- 
ing the  balance  between  the  progress  of  anatomy,  physi- 
ology, pathology,  and  therapeutics,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
that  of  practical  medicine  on  the  other,  and  in  keeping  the 
latter  steadily  subordinate  to  the  former.  Anatomy  teaches 
how  the  organs  are  made ;  physiology,  how  they  perform 
their  functions  in  a  healthy  state ;  pathology,  how  they 
discharge  them  in  a  diseased  state ;  therapeutics,  how  they 
behave  in  regard  to  media,  that  is  to  say,  the  modifying 
agencies  of  every  kind  with  which  they  may  be  brought  in 
contact.  These  four  sciences,  as  definite  and  systematic  as 
are  all  the  other  branches  of  natural  philosophy,  are  the 
arsenals  whence  the  physician  takes  his  weapons  for  the 
contest  he  wagea  with  disease.  It  is  his  part  to  make  ad- 
vantageous use  of  them,  and  to  gain  benefit,  by  quick  per- 


MEDICAMENTS  AND  LIFE.  205 

ception,  practised  skill,  and  watchful  diligence,  from  the 
inexhaustible  resources  of  science.  It  is  his  to  seize  upon 
slight  hints,  and,  with  intuitive  judgment,  to  refer  the  con- 
fused and  irregular  group  of  symptoms  to  the  well-ascer- 
tained mechanism  which  only  can  explain  them.  He  will 
perform  this  task  the  more  easily  and  the  more  successfully, 
the  more  complete  his  knowledge  is  of  the  scientific  truths 
which  are  its  sole  basis.  Now  these  truths,  at  the  present 
day,  are  in  a  condition  of  more  rapid  advance  and  enlarge- 
ment than  they  have  ever  known  hitherto. 


At  the  outset,  the  practice  of  physicians  was  confounded 
with  that  of  the  priesthood.  Temples  were  also  hospitals  ; 
but  we  know  nothing  certain  as  to  the  methods  used  in 
them  to  relieve  or  heal  the  sick,  any  more  than  as  to  the 
circumstances  under  which  the  discovery  of  the  earliest 
remedies  was  made.  The  only  certain  point  is  that  the 
latter  were  plants.  Hippocrates  used  hellebore,  bastard- 
saffron  seeds,  poison-carrot  root,  as  purgatives.  He  pre- 
scribed oxymel  and  hydromel,  and  practised  friction  and 
bleeding.  In  reality,  he  used  few  drugs ;  his  modes  of 
cure  were  borrowed  from  dietetics  and  hygiene,  of  which 
he  established  the  wholesome  rules.  The  immortal  prac- 
titioner of  Cos  believed  that  diseases  tend  toward  a  cure 
of  their  own  accord.  He  admitted  that  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  healing  Nature,  the  effort  of  which  the  physician 
should  aid  by  a  suitable  regimen.  Asclepiades,  of  Bithy- 
nia,  a  scholar  of  Hippocrates,  seems  to  be  the  first  who 
understood  the  narcotic  virtues  of  the  poppy.  In  brief, 
the  doctors  of  the  schools  of  Cos  and  Cnidos  had  very  few 
remedies  at  their  disposal ;  but  the  tolerably  rapid  advance 
of  natural  history  soon  disclosed  medicinal  qualities  in  many 
substances  derived  from  the  organic  kingdoms.  Those  works 
in  which  Aristotle  and  Theophrastus  have  summed  up  the 


206  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

condition  of  the  botanical  and  zoological  knowledge  of  their 
day,  became  the  guide  of  experiments  in  healing,  under  the 
influence  of  which  the  first  books  relating  to  substances 
having  medicinal  qualities  were  written,  among  others  the 
treatises  of  Scribonius,  Largus,  and  of  Dioscorides.  That 
of  Scribonius  bears  the  title,  "  On  the  Composition  of  Medi- 
cines." It  is  dedicated  to  a  freedman  of  the  Emperor 
Claudius.  The  author  had  collected  its  materials  in  the 
different  campaigns  in  which  he  had  been  attached  as  army 
physician  to  the  Roman  legions.  Dioscorides  also,  who 
lived  under  Nero,  was  connected  with  the  army  in  the 
capacity  of  a  doctor,  and  collected  in  the  countries  he 
traversed  a  great  number  of  substances  taken  from  the 
three  natural  kingdoms.  Returning  to  Rome,  he  made  a 
selection  of  those  which  seemed  to  him  to  possess  some 
efficacy  in  medicine,  and  described  them  in  the  Greek 
language  in  an  important  book,  which  gives  us  the  most 
exact  idea  of  the  materia  medica  of  the  ancients,  and  which 
continued  to  be  a  classic  until  the  sixteenth  century.  This 
book  had  the  same  vogue  as  those  of  Aristotle  had  ;  but 
we  shall  find  that  this  kind  of  submissiveness  to  an  ancient 
master  has  not  stood  in  the  way  of  progress. 

Galen,  the  most  learned  and  systematic  among  ancient 
physicians,  gives  a  new  form  and  impulse  to  therapeutics. 
Coming  a  little  later  than  Dioscorides,  he  aimed  to  point 
out  the  best  use  that  could  be  made  of  the  weapons  col- 
lected in  the  arsenal  of  pharmacy  by  the  latter.  The  doc- 
tor of  Pergamus  had  faith  in  the  need  of  prescribing  many 
remedies  as  firm  as  the  conviction  of  Hippocrates  that  Na- 
ture should  be  permitted  to  act  almost  by  herself  in  dis- 
eases. He  substituted  for  the  expectant  methods  the  use 
of  an  abundance  of  drugs,  and  suggested  the  invention  of 
those  complicated  mixtures  known  under  the  name  of  elec- 
tuaries. Galenism  is  the  origin  of  polypharmacy.  It  was 
supposed,  under  the  control  of  those  notions  to  which  this 


MEDICAMENTS  AND   LIFE.  207 

doctor  gave  system  and.definiteness,  that,  while  each  sub 
stance  retained  its  peculiar  virtue  in  the  general  mixture, 
the  compound  enjoyed  the  properties  of  all  the  ingredients 
used  in  its  preparation,  and  thus  formed  a  sovereign  pan- 
acea against  an  infinite  number  of  ills.  The  most  renowned 
of  these  compounds  is  the  theriacum,  which  Borden  calls 
the  masterpiece  of  quackery,  devoting  to  it  a  page  full  of 
wit.  At  first  made  up  by  Mithridates,  it  gained  its  perfect 
finish  from  the  hands  of  Andromachus,  Nero's  physician. 
This  theriacum  comprised  a  hundred  various  elements,  ani- 
mal, vegetable,  and  mineral,  some  of  them  very  odd,  such 
as  earth  from  Lemnos,  and  vipers'  flesh.  This  opiated  elec- 
tuary was  destined  to  occupy  for  a  long  time  an  important 
place  in  pharmacopoeias.  It  was  compounded  with  great 
ceremony,  and  its  qualities  were  so  prized  that  rich  men 
always  kept  a  supply  of  it  by  them. 

From  Galen's  time  on,  medicine  is  closely  connected 
with  scholastic  philosophy.  The  later  we  come  down,  the 
more  completely  is  it  mixed  up  with  theosophy  and  sorcery. 
The  microcosm  was  held  to  be  nothing  but  a  copy  of  the 
macrocosm  ;  men  firmly  believed  that  there  is  a  close  bond 
between  the  human  body  and  the  stars,  and  the  doctor  was 
bid  to  consult  the  latter  before  prescribing  a  remedy.  A 
practitioner  of  the  day,  when  asked  if  barley-gruel  is  fit  for 
persons  attacked  by  fever,  answered  that  the  draught  could 
not  do  them  any  good,  because  it  is  a  substance,  while  fever 
is  an  accident.  This  is  the  kind  of  advantage  that  medi- 
cine seems  to  have  gained  from  that  connection.  While 
wrapped  in  the  swaddling-clothes  of  this  mysticism  for 
nearly  a  thousand  years,  a  travail  was  going  on  of  the  .most 
amazing  kind — some  would  say  of  the  most  injurious,  but 
they  are  wrong.  That  subtile  dialectic  of  the  schools  is 
the  tie  which  binds  Plato  and  Aristotle  to  modern  philoso- 
phy, and  gives  continuous  life  to  the  tradition  of  specula- 
tive thought.  That  passionate  pursuit  of  the  philosophers' 


208  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

stone  is  the  region  in  which  the  seeds  of  the  future  are 
slowly  germinating.  That  phantom  of  the  elixir  of  life  is 
the  step  to  a  vast  number  of  experimental  attempts,  from 
which  the  healing  art  gains  profit  in  spite  of  them.  In 
the  general  belief  that  every  thing  remains  unmoving  and 
wrapped  in  darkness,  it  will  be  found  that,  as  early  as  the 
fifteenth  century,  the  schools  of  Arabia  and  Salerno  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  alchemists  on  the  other,  added  a  mul- 
titude of  precious  substances  to  the  stores  of  the  materia 
medica,  such  as  several  salts  of  antimony,  sal-saturni,  liver 
of  sulphur,  ether,  ammonia,  red  precipitate,  nitric,  sul- 
phuric, and  muriatic  acid,  alcohol,  etc. 

Thus,  when  Paracelsus  drew  the  attention  of  Europe  to 
himself  at  the  opening  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  time 
was  favorable  to  the  design  of  that  renowned  physician. 
Paracelsus  is  the  chief  promoter  of  chemical  therapeutics, 
and  has  thus  exerted  very  great  influence  upon  the  destiny 
of  medicine.  He  first  put  forward  chemistry  as  the  true 
method  of  preparing  medicines,  attacked  the  abuse  of  the 
complicated  and  often  inert  mixtures  of  Galen's  polyphar- 
macy,  and  brought  to  view  the  need  of  isolating  the  quin- 
tessences, the  active  principles  of  simples.  He  restored 
the  almost  forgotten  opium  to  credit.  He  preached  the 
use  of  powerful  substances  taken  from  the  mineral  king- 
dom, and  showed  the  efficacy  in  medicine  of  the  salts  of 
mercury,  of  iron,  arsenic,  antimony,  tin,  gold,  etc.  His 
fortunate  cures  were  as  famous  as  his  irregular  life  was. 
Paracelsus  retained  the  forms  of  diction  in  use  among  his 
contemporaries,  and  even  carried  them  to  excess.  His 
works  abound  in  the  mystical  phrases  of  theosophy  and 
the  cabala,  but  he  was  at  bottom  a  man  of  thoroughly 
emancipated  mind,  whose  boasting  may  be  pardoned  in 
recollection  of  the  opposition  he  met,  and  whose  seeming 
madness  we  excuse  when  we  remember  the  correctness  of 
his  fundamental  ideas. 


MEDICAMENTS   AND   LIFE.  209 

The  seventeenth  century,  which  was  the  grandest  age 
of  progress  in  the  sciences  and  of  literary  greatness,  saw 
therapeutics  made  richer  by  heroic  remedies  ;  emetics,  qui- 
nine, and  ipecacuanha.  The  use  of  these  drugs  was  intro- 
duced under  peculiar  circumstances,  which  are  connected 
with  the  most  curious  episodes  in  the  history  of  medicine. 
Several  compounds  of  antimony  had  been  in  use  before  the 
seventeenth  century,  as  we  have  seen,  but  the  most  valua- 
ble of  all,  emetic  or  stibiated  tartar,  was  prepared  for  the 
first  time  about  1630.  The  discovery  and  use  of  this  new 
antimonial  compound  revived  old  discussions  ;  among  phy- 
sicians and  in  the  faculty  it  occasioned  long-continued  de- 
bates, very  passionate  and  sometimes  extremely  comic. 
While  Eusebius  Renaudot  published,  in  1653,  his  "An- 
timony Vindicated,  and  Antimony  Triumphant,"  James 
Perreau  retorted,  in  1654,  by  his  "Kill- Joy  for  the  Tri- 
umphant Antimony  of  Eusebius  Renaudot."  Perreau  as- 
serted that  a  monk,  intending  to  purge  the  brothers  of  his 
convent,  only  made  out  to  poison  the  whole  of  them,  whence 
the  name  of  antimony  (antimoine).  The  quarrel  grew  far 
angrier^  when  one  of  the  most  bitter,  but  also  one  of  the 
most  reactionary,  spirits  of  the  time,  the  famous  Gui  Patin, 
contributed  his  sarcasms  to  those  of  the  abusers  of  emetics. 
He  would  speak  of  stibiated  tartar  only  by  the  name  of 
stygian  tartar,  declaring  it  as  deadly  as  the  waters  of  the 
Styx,  from  which  it  seemed  to  him  to  issue.  Yet  Louis 
XIV.  benefited  by  it,  his  doctors  having  ventured  to  pre- 
scribe a  pretty  strong  dose  of  it  for  him  in  an  illness  he 
had  at  Calais.  This  was  a  severe  blow  to  the  enemies  of 
antimony. 

The  name  of  the  great  king  is  also  connected  with  the 
introduction  of  two  other  important  remedies  in  therapeu- 
tics, quinine  and  ipecac.  Quinine  is  produced  naturally  and 
abundantly  in  the  forests  of  the  Cordilleras.  Probably  its 

virtues  as  a  febrifuge  had  been  put  to  service  for  a  long  time 

10 


210  NATUKE  AND  LIFE 

by  the  natives  of  those  countries  when  the  corregidor  of 
Loxa,  in  1638,  administered  it  for  the  first  time  to  the 
Countess  del  Cinchon,  the  Spanish  vice -queen  in  Peru. 
This  lady  was  attacked  by  a  very  obstinate  tertian  ague, 
which  the  medicine  easily  conquered.  As  soon  as  this 
wonderful  cure  was  known  in  the  city,  the  townspeople 
of  Lima  sent  a  deputation  to  the  viceroy,  entreating  him 
to  give  the  new  drug  to  the  public.  A  large  quantity  of 
quinine  was  brought  from  Loxa  and  Cuenca,  which  the  vice- 
queen  personally  distributed  among  the  inhabitants,  and 
which  was  thenceforth  called  the  countess's  powder.  A 
century  later,  in  1738,  La  Condamine  gave  the  first  com- 
plete description  of  the  tree  which  furnishes  quinine.  His 
work  served  Linnaeus  as  a  basis  for  determining  the  char- 
acteristics of  the  genus,  which  he  called  cinchona,  in  mem- 
ory of  the  Countess  del  Cinchon.  In  1640,  Del  Cinchon 
went  back  to  Spain,  and  his  physician,  Juan  del  Vego, 
brought  with  him  a  large  cargo  of  the  febrifuge  bark,  which 
he  sold  for  a  high  price.  The  Spanish  Jesuits  soon  made 
it  the  subject  of  profitable  commerce,  and  in  that  way  it 
entered  into  the  European  pharmacopoeia.  Yet  its  emploj  - 
ment  was  not  at  first  very  general.  In  1679  an  English 
doctor,  named  Talbot,  prescribed  a  secret  remedy  for  the 
son  of  Louis  XIV.,  who  suffered  from  stubborn  attacks  of 
intermittent  fever.  The  dauphin  rapidly  recovered  his 
health,  bought  Talbot's  secret  for  forty -eight  thousand 
livres,  and  granted  that  physician  a  life  annuity.  More- 
over, the  remedy,  which  was  merely  a  tincture  of  wine  of 
quinine,  was  made  public  by  the  monarch's  direction.  As 
was  the  case  with  tartar-emetic,  Peruvian  bark  gave  rise  in 
the  schools  to  long  discussions,  in  which,  a  singular  fact, 
political  and  religious  passions  interfered ;  but  quinine 
triumphed  over  all  opposition,  and,  thanks  to  the  efforts 
of  Sydenham,  Morton,  and  Torti,  all  practitioners  were 
soon  agreed  in  acknowledging  its  beneficial  qualities. 


MEDICAMENTS  AND  LIFE.  211 

Ipecacuanha  was  brought  to  France,  and  there  used  for 
the  first  time,  in  1672,  by  a  doctor  named  Legras,  on  his 
return  from  Brazil.  He  did  not  succeed  in  bringing  into 
repute  the  powerful  purgative  and  vomitive  properties  of 
that  root.  A  few  years  later,  another  physician,  of  much 
greater  enterprise,  Adrian  Helvetius,  resolved  to  build  his 
fortune  on  this  drug.  He  posted  placards  in  the  streets 
of  Paris,  announcing  an  unfailing  specific  for  the  dysentery. 
By  a  lucky  coincidence  for  him,  several  gentlemen  of  the 
court,  and  the  dauphin  himself,  Louis  XIV. 's  son,  were  at 
the  time  suffering  from  that  disease.  The  king,  told  by 
Colbert  of  Helvetius's  secret,  directed  one  of  his  physicians 
to  enter  into  arrangements  with  the  owner  of  the  specific. 
The  drug  was  first  tried  in  the  wards  of  PH6tel-Dieu.  As 
soon  as  its  efficacy  was  well  established,  they  paid  Helve- 
tius one  thousand  louis  d'or,  with  the  added  advantage  of 
those  medical  honors  to  which  they  proposed  later  to  raise 
him.  Ipecac  was  spread  very  rapidly  throughout  France 
and  the  rest  of  Europe.  Leibnitz  himself  thought  it  not 
beneath  him  to  speak  warmly  in  its  praise.  It  must  be 
observed,  too,  that  all  the  great  metaphysicians  busied 
themselves  with  medicine.  Descartes,  Malebranche,  and 
Berkeley,  were  not  only  practised  in  that  science,  but  also 
devoted  to  it  a  part  of  their  progressive  meditations,  and 
even  their  experiments.  Under  their  influence,  studies  in 
medicine  attained  new  exactness  and  activity.  The  meth- 
ods and  systems  of  physics  and  chemistry  were  introduced 
into  biology ;  the  composition  of  the  forces,  and  the  struct- 
ure of  the  organs  of  the  system,  were  studied.  Philosophy, 
entering  into  medicine,  imparted  to  it  ardor  in  research 
and  the  passion  for  light.  Let  us  not  forget  that  the  spec- 
ulations of  the  seventeenth  century  are  the  real  starting- 
point  of  that  magnificent  labor  of  expansion  in  the  sciences 
of  which  this  era  and  the  following  one  present  the  spec- 
tacle. ,'  ••-'•••-, 


212  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

The  eighteenth  century  obediently  followed  in  the  sci- 
ences the  impulse  given  by  the  preceding  age.  At  that 
period  Borden,  with  his  Bearnese  fire  and  his  sparkling 
genius  for  medicine,  made  the  use  of  mineral  waters  popu- 
lar, particularly  that  of  the  sulphur  and  thermal  springs 
of  the  Pyrenees,  perhaps  the  most  powerful  of  all.-  He 
recommended  them  for  drinking,  and  made  them  famous 
by  the  talent  with  which  he  cleverly  displayed  their  effects. 
Great  Italian  physicians  studied  the  action  of  quinine 
very  closely.  Dating  from  the  seventeenth  century,  opium 
gained  an  extraordinary  popularity.  The  famous  Sy den- 
ham,  describing  the  epidemic  dysentery  of  the  years  from 
1669  to  1672,  exclaims,  after  describing  the  preparation 
of  the  laudanum  which  has  kept  his  name :  "  I  cannot  re- 
frain from  congratulating  the  human  race  that  the  Omnipo- 
tent has  made  it  the  gift  of  this  remedy,  which  is  apt  for  a 
greater  number  of  cases  than  any  other  is,  and  excels  all 
others  in  efficacy.  Without  it,  the  healing  art  would  cease 
to  be."  Yet  the  effects  of  this  remedy  called  forth  long 
and  passionate  disputes,  with  which  the  name  of  Brown  is 
connected.  This  doctor,  who  lectured  at  Edinburgh  in  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  there  taught  a  theory 
of  the  effects  of  opium,  which  so  carried  his  scholars  away 
that  they  set  up  a  statue  to  him,  with  these  words  carved 
on  the  pedestal :  "  Opium,  assured^,  does  not  soothe." 
Brown  indeed  vehemently  denied  the  sedative  virtues  of 
poppy-juice.  He  classed  it  among  the  stimulants,  and,  to 
prove  himself  in  the  right,  swallowed  enormous  doses  of  it 
at  his  lectures  whenever  kis  fluency  flagged.  In  that  same 
school  at  Edinburgh,  Cullen  too  was  a  professor,  one  of 
the  great  physicians  of  the  eighteenth  century.  To  him 
we  owe  the  discovery  of  the  chief  property  of  digitalis, 
which  is  to  check  the  movements  of  the  heart,  and  conse- 
quently lessen  the  rapidity  of  the  pulse.  Before  this, 
Withering  and  Charles  Darwin  had  recognized  its  diuretic 


MEDICAMENTS  AND   LIFE.  213 

properties  and  its  efficacy  in  dropsy,  but  Cullen  justly 
claims* the  honor  of  having  clearly  proved  the  important 
fact  that  digitalis  is  "  the  opium  of  the  heart." 

The  rapid  advance  of  chemistry  at  this  period  could  not 
fail  to  have  an  effect  on  that  of  therapeutics.  For  one 
thing,  it  had  given  origin  to  new  systems  as  to  diseases, 
and  gained  admirable  drugs  for  practitioners.  It  is  in  the 
eighteenth  century  that  the  use  of  the  purgative  salts  of 
magnesia  began ;  that  the  discovery  was  made,  by  Goulard, 
of  the  acetate  of  lead,  and  the  powerful  astringent  proper- 
ties by  which  it  is  marked  ;  and  that  the  use  of  the  salts 
of  bismuth  was  recommended  by  Odier.  At  the  same 
period  Van  Swieten  made  the  solution  of  corrosive  sub- 
limate famous  which  has  kept  his  name,  and  by  which  he 
replaced  the  inconvenient  mercurial  preparations  in  use 
before  his  time.  These  useful  acquisitions,  doubtless,  en- 
couraged the  development  of  the  art,  but  they  did  not  much 
enlighten  science  in  especial,  and  the  time  was  drawing 
near  when  the  question  must  necessarily  be  asked,  how 
and  why  these  drugs  act.  Hardly  a  thought  had  been 
given  to  that  point  before  Bichat  appeared. 

Bichat,  after  having  reconstructed  anatomy  and  physi- 
ology, and  then  pathology,  was  ambitious  to  reform  thera- 
peutics also.  Struck  by  the  disorder  and  want  of  exact- 
ness of  that  science,  he  believed  that  it  might  be  brought 
nearer  perfection  by  the  methodical  study  of  the  action  of 
medicinal  substances,  not  upon  diseases,  which  are  compli- 
cated phenomena,  but  upon  the  tissues.  With  this  pur- 
pose he  undertook  at  l'H6tel-Dieu,  at  which  he  had  just 
been  appointed  physician — he  was  then  thirty  years  old — 
a  series  of  exact  experiments  with  regard  to  the  effect  of 
remedies.  More  than  forty  pupils  began  to  assist  him  in 
this  undertaking,  and  in  each  one  of  the  course  of  lectures 
he  was  making  on  these  substances  he  gave  an  account 
of  the  results  obtained ;  but  Fate  did  not  allow  him  to  go 


214  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

far  in  this  untried  path,  for  he  died  on  the  3d  of  Ther- 
midor,  of  the  year  X.,  aged  hardly  thirty-two.  Thus  the 
labors  that  might  have  impressed  a  new  tendency  upon 
therapeutics  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  century,  were 
checked  by  the  death  of  the  great  man  who  had  conceived 
the  idea  of  them,  and  who  would  surely  have  successfully 
pursued  their  difficult  execution.  In  truth,  this  surprising 
genius  was  too  much  in  advance  of  his  time.  Among  the 
physicians  who  came  immediately  after  him,  either  no  one 
saw  the  importance  or  else  no  one  felt  himself  strong 
enough  to  attempt  the  realization  of  Bichat's  design. 
Science  had  yet  to  await  for  more  than  fifty  years  those 
investigations  which  destroyed  empiricism,  and  established 
therapeutics  firmly  and  definitely.  It  is  to  Claude  Bernard, 
in  great  part,  that  we  owe  this  reform. 

II. 

Empiricism  is  so  tenacious  of  life,  tradition  so  mighty, 
that  when  Bernard  undertook  his  first  labors  in  scientific 
therapeutics,  and  explained  its  principles,  twenty  years 
ago,  he  had  to  struggle  against  the  opposition  of  the  most 
distinguished  doctors.  These  physicians — among  whom 
we  may  name  Trousseau,  with  a  mind  of  marvelous  sup- 
pleness and  brilliancy,  gifted  with  the  brightest  artist-fac- 
ulties, which  for  him  took  the  place  of  those  of  the  sage — 
persistently  maintained  that  the  action  of  remedies  can- 
not be  reduced  to  fixed  laws,  and  that  vital  operations 
elude  any  exact  ascertainment.  Claude  Bernard  has  dis- 
proved these  unphilosophic  assertions.  He  has  unfolded, 
in  many  essays,  the  methods  which  permit  a  rigorous  so- 
lution of  the  problems  of  therapeutics,  and  he  has  joined 
example  with  precept  in  his  investigations  as  to  curare, 
oxide  of  carbon,  ether,  nicotine,  the  alkaloids  of  opium, 
etc.  His  methods  are  the  application  of  the  rules  of  Car- 
tesianism  itself.  "  We  must  analyze,"  in  his  own  words, 


MEDICAMENTS  AND   LIFE.  215 

"  complicated  actions,  and  reduce  them  to  simpler  actions, 
more  easily  determined.  .  .  .  Only  experiments  on  animals 
enable  us  sufficiently  to  make  those  physiological  analyses 
which  will  throw  light  and  clearness  upon  the  effects  of 
medicinal  substances  as  they  are  noted  in  man.  In  fact, 
we  find  that  every  thing  we  observe  in  man  is  repeated  in 
animals,  and  vice  versa,  only  with  such  peculiarities  as  the 
difference  in  their  organisms  accounts  for ;  but  the  nature 
of  physiological  actions  is  fundamentally  the  same.  It 
could  not  be  otherwise,  for,  unless  this  were  so,  there 
could  never  be  either  any  science  of  physiology  or  any  sci- 
ence of  medicine."  The  most  famous  of  modern  surgeons, 
Sedillot,  has  demonstrated,  for  his  part,  that  surgical  thera- 
peutics can  have  no  other  basis  than  the  unchangeableness 
of  vital  phenomena  in  their  relation  of  cause  and  effect. 
He  has  made  it  plain  that  the  art  must  be  founded  on  the 
unity  and  generality  of  science,  instead  of  leaving  it  at  the 
mercy  of  individual  fancy.1  We  now  see  in  the  clearest 
manner,  thanks  to  the  efforts  of  these  two  savants,  how 
the  study  of  those  manifold  resources  which  the  physician 
has  recourse  to  for  the  treatment  of  diseases  may  be  advan- 
tageously pursued. 

1  "  The  unchangeableness  of  phenomena  in  their  relation  of  cause  and 
effect,"  says  Sedillot,  "  is  a  law  without  which  no  science,  no  observa- 
tion, no  order,  could  be  possible.  Man,  notwithstanding  the  very  great 
complexity  of  the  causes  of  his  physiological  manifestations,  is  no  excep- 
tion to  it.  What  has  occurred  once,  in  given  circumstances,  will  be  con- 
stantly represented  under  like  circumstances,  and  a  change  in  etiological 
conditions  is  the  only  reason  for  modifications  in  function.  This  fun- 
damental starting-point  is  indispensable  for  the  physician,  whose  mind 
doubts  and  whose  judgment  is  uncertain  if  he  is  not  convinced  of  the 
constancy  of  facts  submitted  to  his  researches.  No  doubt  the  analysis 
he  engages  in  is  difficult ;  but,  whatever  its  complexity,  the  most  clear- 
sighted, attentive,  and  persevering  observer  will  make  discoveries  in  it 
every  day,  with  the  hope  of  still  adding  to  their  number,  and  of  intro- 
ducing light  and  certainty  where  all  was  only  darkness  and  confusion." — 
Contributions  to  Surgery  (Preface). 


216  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

Governed  by  these  ideas,  Bernard  has  studied  the 
various  active  principles  contained  in  opium,  as  regards 
their  comparative  influence  over  the  animal  functions,  and 
has  ascertained  that  they  exhibit  properties  not  merely 
differing  from,  but  opposed  to,  each  other.  He  has  made 
more  than  two  hundred  experiments  with  morphine,  nar- 
ceine,  codeine,  narcotine,  papaverine,  and  thebaine.  These 
examinations  have  proved  that,  among  these  six  principles, 
only  three  produce  sleep ;  these  are,  morphine,  narceine, 
and  codeine.  The  three  others  have  no  soporific  effect ; 
they  possess  a  power,  either  stimulating  or  toxic,  which 
rather  tends  to  thwart  or  to  modify  the  narcotic  effect  of 
the  former  three.  In  the  scale  of  their  power  to  produce 
sleep,  narceine  holds  the  first  grade,  morphine  the  second, 
and  codeine  the  third.  As  stimulants,  thebaine  has  more 
power  than  narcotine,  and  the  latter  more  than  codeine. 
And  last,  as  to  their  toxic  quality,  Bernard  arranges  them 
in  the  following  order,  begining  with  the  most  poisonous : 
thebaine,  codeine,  papaverine,  narceine,  morphine,  narco- 
tine. We  see  that  the  author  of  these  investigations  has 
not  been  content  with  merely  describing  the  differences  in 
their  action  which  mark  the  alkaloids  of  opium,  but  that 
he  has  also  measured  the  degree  of  intensity  with  which 
each  one  of  them  displays  the  kind  of  physiological  or  the- 
rapeutic activity  peculiar  to  it. 

These  studies  have  been  taken  up  again  quite  lately, 
by  Rabuteau.  This  experimenter  has  examined  the  ac- 
tion of  the  alkaloids  of  opium  on  sensibility  and  on  the  in- 
testine, and  has  made  trial  of  them  in  a  methodical  way  on 
the  human  subject,  at  the  hospitals  of  la  Charite"  and  la 
Pitie".  The  order  in  which  the  various  principles  of  opium 
may  be  classed,  with  regard  to  their  activity,  is  not  the 
same  in  the  case  of  man  as  it  is  with  animals.  Thus 
Rabuteau  found  that  morphine,  which  has  relatively  but 
little  toxic  power  over  the  latter,  is  in  the  highest  degree 


MEDICAMENTS  AND  LIFE. 

effective  upon  man  in  that  manner.  Narceine  puts  animals 
to  sleep  more  readily  than  morphine,  while  the  reverse  is 
the  case  with  us;  yet  the  former,  though  less  powerful 
than  the  latter  as  to  the  soothing  of  pain  and  the  produc- 
tion of  sleep,  seems  to  be  preferred  with  good  reason  in 
therapeutics.  Narceine,  in  a  dose  of  twenty- five  centi- 
grammes, induces  a  calm  and  refreshing  sleep,  followed  by 
an  awakening  after  which  none  of  the  troubles  are  experi- 
enced which  follow  the  administration  of  morphine,  such  as 
weariness  and  nausea.  It  should  be  preferred  also  as  a 
remedy  for  pain,  since,  in  neutralizing  pain  in  patients,  it 
produces  in  them  a  most  desirable  condition  of  comfort; 
nothing  is  better  for  neuralgia,  for  instance.  Narceine  and 
morphine  have,  moreover,  a  property  which  explains  the 
well-known  effects  of  opium  in  intestinal  discharges. 

These  labors  present  another  proof  of  the  benefit  thera- 
peutics gains  from  chemistry,  and  of  the  fixed  connection 
there  is  between  the  improvement  of  one  and  the  advance 
of  the  other.  So  long  as  opium  was  a  mystery  for  chem- 
ists, it  was  one  for  doctors  too.  The  moment  the  substance 
of  that  complex  drug  was  decomposed  into  a  certain  num- 
ber of  well-defined  principles,  and  the  nature  of  their 
blending  was  ascertained  exactly,  that  moment  it  became 
possible  to  decompose  not  merely  the  substance,  but  the 
physiological  force  of  opium,  and  to  reduce  it  to  a  small 
number  of  distinct  potencies.  Now,  thanks  to  the  labors 
of  Bernard  and  Rabuteau,  physicians  can  arrive  at  an  un- 
derstanding of  the  mode  in  which  ancient  therapeutics 
felt  its  way  as  to  the  use  of  opiates,  and  they  are  able  for 
the  future  to  act  with  precision  on  this  or  that  function,  by 
prescribing  this  or  that  pure  alkaloid  whose  properties  are 
known. 

By  uniting  with  the  influence  of  narceine  or  morphine 
that  of  chloroform,  we  produce  new  and  very  curious 
phenomena.  Bernard  had  already  observed  that  insensi- 


218  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

bility  produced  by  chloroform  is  prolonged  in  animals 
when  they  have  taken  opium.  Nussbaum,  having  made  a 
subcutaneous  injection  of  acetate  of  morphine  with  a  pa- 
tient under  operation,  and  who  was  put  under  the  action  of 
chloroform,  noticed  that  the  subject  did  not  wake  as  usual, 
but  slept  on  quietly  for  twelve  hours.  During  this  sleep 
he  was  insensible  to  pain.  Goujin  and  Labbe"  have  con- 
firmed this  fact,  and  made  use  of  it  in  their  practice,  and 
have  found  that,  by  uniting  weak  doses  of  chloroform  and 
of  a  salt  of  morphine,  we  may  effect  complete  insensibil- 
ity for  several  hours,  without  sleep  necessarily  attending 
it.  Rabuteau  also  performed  the  following  experiment : 
A  dog  to  which  five  centigrammes  of  narceine  had  been  ad- 
ministered, and  which  was  then  put  to  sleep  by  chloroform, 
had  no  feeling  on  awaking.  It  walked  about  in  the  labo- 
ratory, recognized  a  voice  calling  it,  but  had  wholly  lost  the 
use  of  its  sensitive  nervous  system.  It  could  be  pinched, 
or  pricked,  or  its  toes  stepped  on,  without  the  least  show 
of  suffering.  This  singular  condition,  in  an  animal  com- 
pletely awake,  lasted  some  hours ;  the  next  day  sensibility 
had  returned. 

From  chloroform  to  chloral  the  transition  is  natural. 
Chloral,  which  was  discovered  in  1832  by  Dumas  and 
Liebig,  differs  from  common  alcohol  in  having  an  ex- 
cess of  chloride,  and  less  of  hydrogen.1  For  nearly  forty 
years  this  substance  remained  unused ;  its  physiological 
qualities  were  not  suspected.  At  length,  in  1868,  a  Ger- 
man chemist,  Liebreich,  remembering  that  chloral  may  be 
reduced  by  alkalies  into  chloroform  and  formic  acid,  asked 
himself  whether  such  a  decomposition  might  not  occur  in 
the  living  organism  as  well  as  in  a  laboratory  crucible. 
He  tries  the  experiment,  and  Nature  replies  by  an  em- 
phatic yes.  Chloral  is  decomposed  in  the  system  on  con- 

1  This  substance  may  be  regarded  as  tri-chlorated  aldehyde.     Chemists 
represent  it  under  the  formula  C2HC130. 


MEDICAMENTS  AND   LIFE.  219 

tact  with  the  alkalies  of  the  blood ;  it  produces  chloroform 
in  it,  but  so  very  slowly  that  the  sleep  induced  may  last 
for  some  hours.  This  sleep,  less  deep  arid  more  quiet  than 
that  obtained  by  chloroform,  has  the  additional  advantage 
that  it  may  be  prolonged  without  any  inconvenience  by 
new  doses  of  the  anaesthetic  compound.  The  success  of 
chloral  has  been  rapid.  From  1832  to  1868,  a  few  kilo- 
grammes of  it  had  been  prepared  for  the  demands  of  sci- 
ence ;  at  present  the  Berlin  manufactories,  of  themselves, 
furnish  to  commerce  a  hundred  kilogrammes  daily.  This 
popularity  is  well  founded,  and  will  last,  and  the  more  so 
because  chloral  is  not  merely  the  same  thing  for  medicine 
that  chloroform  is  for  surgery.  It  singularly  lessens  the 
excito-motor  power  of  the  spinal  marrow,  and  may  thus 
claim  to  be  of  remarkable  utility  in  the  treatment  of  several 
complaints ;  but  is  especially  applied  every  day  in  calming 
violent  and  stubborn  pain,  like  that  of  inflammatory  rheu- 
matisms. 

The  poppy  contains  several  alkaloids  which  differ  in 
their  effects  respectively.  Various  plants  present  the  like 
complexity  as  regards  therapeutics;  others,  on  the  con- 
trary, like  hemlock  and  belladonna,  contain  only  a  single 
alkaloid.  Cicutine,  the  extract  of  hemlock,  and  atropine, 
obtained  from  belladonna,  have  very  lately  been  the  sub- 
ject of  interesting  examinations.  Martin,  Damouret,  and 
Pel  vet,  who  have  studied  hemlock,  have  confirmed  by  ex- 
periment the  precision  of  those  historic  details  which  have 
come  down  to  us  as  to  the  symptoms  experienced  by  Soc- 
rates, after  he  had  swallowed  the  deadly  draught.1  Atro- 
pine has  opened  a  new  path  in  the  treatment  of  disorders 
of  the  eye,  thanks  to  the  singular  property  it  has  of  dilat- 

1  "  When  they  brought  him  the  poison,  Socrates  asked  what  he  had  to 
do.  '  Nothing,'  answered  the  jailer,  '  but  to  walk  about  after  swallow- 
ing it,  till  you  feel  a  heaviness  in  the  legs.'  He  drank,  and  walked  about, 
and,  as  soon  as  he  felt  his  legs  weaken,  he  lay  down  on  his  back.  At  the 


220  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

ing  the  pupil  of  the  eye  when  dropped  into  that  organ,  or 
introduced  through  the  usual  passages.  An  extremely  mi- 
nute quantity  of  this  active  principle  is  enough  to  produce 
this  phenomenon  almost  instantly,  the  importance  of  which 
Harley  was  the  first  to  indicate.  The  exact  knowledge 
of  the  effects  of  atropine,  which,  moreover,  acts  upon  the 
whole  nervous  system,  furnishes  an  explanation  of  the 
strange  circumstances,  among  others  the  remarkable  mad- 
ness, of  which  ancient  authors  speak  when  describing  some 
cases  of  poisoning  by  belladonna. 

There  exists  a  substance  which  exerts  over  the  appara- 
tus of  sight  an  influence  directly  opposed  to  that  of  atro- 
pine ;  this  is  the  Calabar  bean,  the  properties  of  which  were 
discovered  in  1863  by  a  skillful  physician  of  Edinburgh, 
Mr.  Fraser.  This  seed,  or  rather  the  alkaloid  contained  in 
it,  and  which  was  isolated  in  1865  by  a  French  chemist, 
Vee,  occasions  so  powerful  a  contraction  and  narrowing 
of  the  pupil  of  the  eye,  that  the  orifice  almost  completely 
vanishes.  This  constriction  of  the  pupil  reaches  its  highest 
point  about  an  hour  after  the  active  principle  has  been  ad- 
ministered, and  persists  for  about  three  hours,  and  then 
slowly  disappears.  This  action  upon  the  muscles  govern- 
ing the  movements  of  the  pupil  depends  on  the  excitement 
of  a  particular  nerve.  Atropine  paralyzes  this  nerve,  thus 
occasioning  dilatation  of  the  pupil.  There  is  thus  an  op- 
position between  the  active  principle  of  the  Calabar  bean 
and  that  of  atropine,  and  experience  shows  that  the  effects 

same  time,  the  man  who  had  brought  him  the  poison  touched  him,  and 
after  a  little  while  examined  his  feet  and  legs  ;  then,  pressing  one  of  his 
feet  strongly,  he  asked  him  if  he  felt  it ;  Socrates  answered, '  No.'  After- 
ward he  again  pressed  the  lower  part  of  his  legs,  and,  thus  advancing  up- 
ward, he  showed  us  that  the  body  was  growing  cold,  and  becoming  rigid. 
He  still  continued  feeling,  and  said,  '  Whenever  it  reaches  the  heart  he 
will  die.'  Already  almost  all  the  parts  near  the  lower  abdomen  were 
chilled.  Socrates  then  uttered  a  few  words,  then  went  into  a  convulsion, 
and  died." — PLATO. 


MEDICAMENTS  AND   LIFE. 

of  one  neutralize  those  of  the  other.  Physicians  profess- 
ing the  treatment  of  the  eve  are  beginning  to  take  advan- 
tage of  these  properties. 

We  find  that  every  alkaloid,  apart  from  a  general  action 
on  the  system,  has  also  a  more  special  one  upon  a  certain 
part  of  the  system,  or  a  certain  organ.  Now,  digitalis  is 
a  poison,  or  a  remedy  in  heart-disease.  Since  Cullen's 
time,  although  he  had  so  clearly  indicated  the  true  uses 
of  that  medicine,  it  was  -  but  little  employed,  except  as  a 
diuretic.  Only  of  late  years  Traube,  professor  at  Berlin, 
and  Hirtz,  professor  at  Strasbourg,  have  again  taken  up 
the  study  of  this  vegetable  product,  and  again  brought 
into  view,  by  clinical  experiments  and  results,  the  impor- 
tance of  the  effect  it  produces  upon  the  circulation  and 
heat  of  the  system.  Thanks  to  the  power  it  possesses  of 
making  the  heart's  pulsations  slower,  and  consequently 
checking  the  movements  of  the  blood,  this  agent  is  of  ser- 
vice in  all  diseases,  particularly  those  of  a  febrile  kind,  in 
which  the  activity  of  internal  heat  needs  to  be  lessened. 
Digitalis  owes  these  properties  to  a  substance  which  till 
very  lately  there  had  been  no  means  of  isolating  entirely. 
We  were  able  only  to  obtain  from  it  a  formless  substance, 
yellowish  and  complex,  and  varying  in  force  of  action. 
Within  a  few  months  a  skillful  chemist,  Nativelle,  has 
succeeded  in  extracting  from  it  a  principle  quite  definite 
in  composition,  in  fine  needles  of  crystals,  white  and  ex- 
tremely bitter,  and  which  is  true  digitalis.  The  Academy 
of  Medicine  awarded  an  extraordinary  prize  to  the  author 
of  this  discovery.  Digitaline,  prepared  by  the  new  method, 
is  so  powerful  that,  in  a  dose  of  a  quarter  of  a  thousandth 
of  a  gramme  only,  with  the  human  subject,  it  affects  the 
movements  of  the  heart,  and  in  one  of  five  thousandths  of 
a  gramme  would  produce  death !  On  the  other  hand,  its 
effect  is  so  certain  and  so  characteristic  that,  when  digitaline 
exists  in  a  mixture  in  quantity  so  minute  that  it  can  be  dis- 


222  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

covered  in  it  only  by  chemical  reactions,  there  is  an  unfail- 
ing way  of  distinguishing  it  by  observing  the  action  of  the 
mixture  on  the  heart  of  a  frog.  This  device  was  resorted 
to  a  few  years  ago,  in  a  celebrated  case  of  poisoning  by 
digitaline.  Physicians  have  also  lately  been  using  another 
alkaloid,  veratrine,  which,  like  the  former,  exerts  a  powerful 
action  upon  the  muscular  fibres,  especially  on  those  of  the 
heart,  and  is  serviceable  in  inflammations  of  the  internal 
organs,  particularly  in  inflammation  of  the  chest. 

Something  may  properly  be  said  here  of  the  Eucalyptus 
globulus,  which  has  been  so  much  talked  of  for  several 
years.  The  eucalyptus,  lately  brought  b3^  Ramel  from  Aus- 
tralia to  Southern  Europe,  where  it  is  readily  acclimated, 
is  a  gigantic  tree  of  the  family  of  Myrtacece.  It  contains 
a  volatile  oil,  imparting  peculiar  properties  to  the  leaves 
and  bark,  which  have  been  employed  with  advantage  of 
late  in  therapeutics — thanks  to  the  efforts  of  several  French 
doctors,  particularly  those  of  Grinbert.  The  essence  of 
eucalyptus  impairs  the  reflex  sensibility  of  the  spinal  cord, 
and  thus  quiets  cough  and  relieves  oppression  in  very 
many  pulmonary  complaints.  By  the  effect  it  produces  on 
the  mucosities  it  deserves  a  place  in  the  first  rank  of  reme- 
dies used  in  the  treatment  of  catarrh.  Prosper  Me>ime"e, 
who  spent  the  last  years  of  his  life  at  Cannes,  constantly 
smoked  eucalyptus  cigarettes  there,  and  seemed  to  derive 
great  relief  from  them.  Besides  this  essence,  this  Austra- 
lian tree  contains  a  bitter  principle  very  efficient  in  inter- 
mittent morbid  conditions,  particularly  malarial  fevers.  In- 
deed, in  South  America,  Spain,  Corsica,  Algeria,  and  Rou- 
mania,  the  infusion  of  eucalyptus  begins  to  enjoy  a  certain 
fashion  as  a  febrifuge,  and  it  is  the  more  eagerly  resorted 
to  in  those  regions  because  it  often  subdues  cases  that 
have  resisted  the  action  of  quinine.  A  fortunate  whole- 
someness,  too,  is  the  privilege  of  countries  in  which  this 
tree  is  very  common.  The  balsamic  exhalations  which  it 


MEDICAMENTS  AND   LIFE.  223 

throws  off  constantly  sweeten  and  cleanse  the  air.  Trav- 
elers and  physicians  who  have  closely  studied  its  physio- 
logical properties  are  persuaded  that  it  might  be  introduced 
with  advantage  for  giving  salubrity  to  marshy  countries 
where  fever  is  endemic,  by  not  merely  altering  the  air, 
but  also  drying  up  the  soil,  and  preventing  the  develop- 
ment in  it  of  the  aquatic  vegetation  from  which  miasma 
proceeds. 

These  new  medicaments  of  which  we  have  spoken  are 
all  of  them  organic  compounds,  that  is  to  say,  they  are 
obtained  more  or  less  directly  from  vegetable  or  animal 
substances.  Therapeutics  also  makes  use  of  quite  a  num- 
ber of  mineral  medical  preparations.  There  are  few  among 
the  latter  whose  introduction  into  practice  is  of  recent  date. 
Yet  one  of  them  that  has  come  into  use  only  within  a  few 
years  has  lately  taken  a  very  important  place  in  the  treat- 
ment of  nervous  disorders — we  mean  bromide  of  potassium. 
This  salt,  as  to  which  physiologists  had  remarked  its  calm- 
ing action  on  the  nerves  and  vessels,  has  lately  been  adopted 
by  practitioners  as  a  remedy  for  nervous  affections,  and 
particularly  for  epilepsy.  Given  in  a  dose  of/  several 
grammes  a  day,  it  exerts  the  most  striking  sedative  action 
upon  that  fearful  nervous  malady ;  if  it  does  not  cure  it 
completely,  it  at  least  effects  a  long  intermission  between 
the  attacks,  and  always  quiets  the  shocks,  the  convulsions, 
and  irritability  of  patients.  Observations  made  on  a  great 
scale  seven  or  eight  years  ago,  in  England  and  France, 
leave  no  doubt  as  to  the  reality  of  this  result.  Another 
mineral  preparation  in  medicine,  employed  for  a  long  time, 
arsenical  acid,  has  become,  through  recent  labors  of  Magi- 
tot,  one  of  the  most  certain  agents  used  in  dental  treat- 
ment ;  it  possesses  the  singular  property  of  inducing  re- 
production of  the  ivory  in  teeth. 

The  facts  we  have  here  cited  prove  productive  activity 
in  the  study  of  scientific  therapeutics  of  late  years,  and 


224:  NATUKE  AND   LIFE. 

form  the  best  answer  that  can  be  given  to  doubts  on  the 
subject  of  medicine.  We  may  believe,  without  indulging 
illusions,  that  this  advance  will  not  pause.  We  desire  no 
better  proof  of  it  than  the  genuine  ardor  with  which  these 
researches  are  now  followed  in  all  countries.  To  use  Ra- 
buteau's  words,  we  are  no  longer  satisfied  to  know  that  a 
medicine  cures,  we  wish  to  know  also  how  it  works  a  cure.1 
This  sort  of  curiosity  has  seized  upon  almost  all  physicians ; 
and  even  those  who  appear  not  to  think  that  therapeutics 
deserves  the  name  of  a  science,  willingly  make  efforts  to 
gain  a  better  knowledge  of  the  mechanism  of  action  by 
medicinal  substances. 

Is  there  a  relation  between  the  chemical  nature  of 
bodies  and  the  degree  of  their  poisoning  and  curative 
power  ?  We  can  now  answer  this  question  affirmatively. 
Certain  observations,  by  way  of  experiment  and  conjecture, 
had  long  ago  been  made  upon  this  point.  Thus,  we  knew 
that  the  salts  of  heavy  metals  are  more  active  than  those 
of  light  ones ;  that  the  salts  of  lead  and  of  mercury  have 
poisonous  properties,  while  the  salts  of  soda  and  of  mag- 
nesia are  relatively  harmless ;  but  this  was  a  mere  com- 
parison, without  exactitude.  Rabuteau  has  stated  with 
precision  the  general  relation  between  the  physiological 
potency  of  mineral  compounds  and  their  chemical  char- 
acter. The  power  of  the  soluble  metallic  salts  is  in  direct 
ratio  to  the  atomic  weight  of  the  metal  contained  in  the 
salt.  The  atomic  weights  of  metals  being  in  inverse  ratio 
to  their  specific  heats,  Rabuteau's  law  may  be  otherwise 
expressed  under  this  form :  The  metals  are  more  active 
in  proportion  as  their  specific  heat  is  weaker.  The  law 
is  the  same  as  to  metalloids  of  the  oxygen  family ;  it 

1  "  Elements  of  Therapeutics  and  Pharmacology,"  1873  (preface). 
This  remarkable  work  is  the  first  treatise  published  on  scientific  thera- 
peutics. It  groups  together  with  uncommon  merit  the  latest  labors 
respecting  the  action  and  usefulness  of  medicinal  substances. 


MEDICAMENTS  AND  LIFE. 

is  inverse  for  those  which  are  related  to  chlorine,  and  for 
those  of  the  arsenical  class.  This  untiring  investigator,  in 
order  to  establish  these  laws,  undertook  experiments  six 
years  ago,  which  have  been  steadily  followed  up  till  very 
lately ;  and  the  Academy  of  Sciences  has  recognized  their 
discovery  by  a  brilliant  reward.  Their  practical  interest 
may  easily  be  estimated.  When  a  physician,  in  future, 
has  need  to  choose  between  different  salts,  all  that  will  be 
required  will  be  to  consult  a  table  of  atomic  weights  in 
order  to  learn  at  once  their  respective  activities,  and  con- 
sequently to  fix  upon  the  proper  dose  of  them.  When  a 
physiologist  wishes  to  test  the  action  of  a  metallic  com- 
pound, he  will  be  able  to  foretell  its  relative  intensity,  and 
thus  to  guide  his  use  of  it  in  experiment.  When  the  effect 
of  salts  of  thallium  was  tried  upon  animals  some  years  ago, 
this  being  one  of  the  metals  just  revealed  by  spectrum 
analysis,  it  was  noted  with  much  surprise  that  these  salts, 
so  extremely  similar  in  other  respects  to  those  of  soda  and 
of  potassa,  were  yet  powerfully  poisonous.  This  is  because 
the  atomic  weight  of  thallium  is  very  high  ;  its  poison- 
ing potency  is  thus  in  exact  agreement  with  Rabuteau's 
law. 

The  improvement  of  the  healing  art  is  thus  allied  in 
the  closest  way  with  the  advance  of  our  knowledge  as  to 
the  true  action  of  toxic  and  medicinal  substances.  To 
enlarge  this  knowledge,  we  must  follow  Bernard's  ex- 
ample and  methods  in  the  examination  of  effects  pro- 
duced upon  animal  tissues.  It  is  of  moment,  too,  as  Du- 
mas recommends,  to  test  the  action  of  all  those  new  sub- 
stances which  organic  chemistry  has  been  for  some  time 
producing,  several  of  which  undoubtedly  carry  in  them 
medicinal  qualities.  The  study  of  these  effects  is  very-  re- 
fined, and  those  savants  who  undertake  it  will  need  to 
handle  with  equal  skill  the  instruments  of  physics,  of  physi- 
ology, and  of  chemistry.  The  point  is  not  simply  to  analyze 


226  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

the  manifest  symptoms  arising  from  disorder  of  the  organs, 
to  distinguish  the  parts  affected,  and  to  decide  on  the  kind 
of  change  they  have  undergone ;  it  is  indispensable,  besides, 
to  investigate  the  alterations  occurring  in  the  direct  com- 
position of  the  secretions  and  excretions,  as  well  as  the 
passages  and  modes  by  which  the  active  substances  are 
eliminated ;  and,  moreover,  to  measure  the  variations  of 
temperature,  pressure,  muscular  energy,  etc.,  by  which  the 
therapeutic  action  becomes  evident.  To  carry  out  success- 
fully so  complicated  an  examination,  we  use  the  common 
implements  of  vivisection,  recording  contrivances,  most  of 
which  were  devised  by  Marey,  chemical  reacting  agents, 
microscopes,  spectroscopes,  and  polarizers.  In  a  word,  all 
the  sciences  yield  their  tribute  to  the  physiologist  who 
seeks  in  his  turn  to  furnish  the  physician  with  therapeutic 
precepts  that  may  be  confidently  applied. 

Such  are,  in  respect  to  physiology,  the  just  hopes  of 
therapeutics.  It  may  fairly  indulge  no  less  promising  ones 
with  regard  to  chemistry.  The  latter,  which  has  already 
rendered  so  many  and  so  great  services  to  the  healing  art, 
will  render  it  the  last  and  the  most  desirable  of  all,  by  the 
artificial  creation  of  those  active  principles  which  we  are 
as  yet  still  compelled  to  extract  from  vegetables.  The 
preparation  of  the  alkaloids  by  the  aid  of  plants  is  so  te- 
dious and  costly,  and  may  be  impeded  in  certain  contin- 
gencies in  a  way  so  injurious  to  the"  interests  of  public 
health,  that  chemists  should  exert  themselves  to  make 
those  operations  of  a  rude  art  unnecessary  for  the  future. 
The  knowledge  of  the  inner  structure  of  molecules  is  com- 
plete enough,  the  power  of  methods  of  synthesis  is  perfect 
enough,  to  allow  such  an  attempt  to  be  undertaken  without 
rashness.  In  the  vessels  of  a  laboratory,  vegetable  acids, 
essences,  and  fats,  are  reproduced  complete ;  pungent  per- 
fumes and  brilliant  colors  are  prepared  from  them  by  deli- 
cate chemical  reactions ;  why  might  not  chemists  discover 


MEDICAMENTS  AND  LIFE. 

the  secret  of  the  formation  of  those  subtile  principles,  be- 
neficent or  terrible  according  to  their  various  natures,  which 
sometimes  restore  endangered  health,  and  sometimes  quench 
the  flame  of  life  ?  It  is  true  that  attempts  hitherto  made 
in  that  direction  have  not  been  crowned  with  success ;  at 
least  medicine  has  gained  no  advantage  from  them.  It 
was  while  following  out  experiments  on  the  means  of  ob- 
taining quinine  artificially,  and  while  studying  toluidine 
with  this  view,  that  Perkin,  in  1856,  discovered,  instead 
of  the  precious  medicine  he  was  in  search  of,  a  red  com- 
pound which  became  the  source  of  aniline  colors.  This 
check,  of  so  singular  a  kind,  should  not  discourage  inves- 
tigators ;  permanent  fame  is  reserved  for  him  who  shall 
succeed  where  Perkin  failed. 

We  may  be  allowed  to  suppose,  too,  as  A.  W.  Hoff- 
mann lately  took  occasion  to  say,  that  the  same  thing  will 
take  place  in  future  in  therapeutics  that  has  occurred  in 
the  art  of  dyeing.  At  this  day  no  one  endeavors,  as  used 
to  be  done,  to  obtain  different  shades  by  the  mechanical 
mixture  of  several  coloring-matters.  One  principle  is 
taken,  and,  according  to  the  color  desired,  is  subjected  to 
a  determinate  chemical  transformation ;  one  and  the  same 
molecule,  modified  in  its  inner  structure  by  suitable  re- 
agents, becomes  in  succession  red,  blue,  green,  violet. 
One  who  watches  attentively  the  influence  of  chemistry 
upon  all  manufactures,  cannot  doubt  the  realization  of  simi- 
lar progress  in  other  directions ;  he  will  trust  that  thera- 
peutics will  some  day  succeed  in  modifying,  as  it  may 
choose,  the  properties  of  medicinal  principles,  not,  as  now, 
by  means  of  mixtures  in  the  druggist's  glass,  but  with  the 
help  of  fixed  and  regulated  metamorphoses,  effected  in  the 
very  inmost  structure  of  the  molecule  of  the  active  prin- 
ciple. Late  experiments  by  Messrs.  Crum-Brown  and 
Fraser  have  made  a  brilliant  beginning  in  researches  of 
this  kind. 


228  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

Therapeutics  has  been  aided,  and  may  be  more  and 
more  benefited,  by  the  labors  of  physicists.  The  employ- 
ment of  electricity,  heat,  cold,  magnetism,  and  light,  in  the 
treatment  of  diseases,  is  yet  in  its  earliest  stages,  though 
momentous  results  have  even  now  been  gained.  We  shall 
need  to  study  with  careful  exactness  the  action  of  these 
various  forces  on  the  human  system.  Are  not  these  very 
forces  closelj7  linked  to  the  cosmic  medium  in  which  we 
live,  a  medium  swayed  by  the  general  conditions  of  celes- 
tial mechanism  ?  This  is  saying  that  the  advance  of  medi- 
cal art  is  not  independent  of  progress  in  investigations 
upon  the  relations  of  the  organism  with  agents  which  seem 
to  touch  it  but  slightly,  and  from  afar. 

Thus,  history  displays  to  our  view  all  the  sciences  in 
constant  mutual  reaction,  and  completing  their  improve- 
ment by  the  reciprocation  of  profound  influences.  It  is 
thus  that  they  sustain  each  other  inseparably  in  commun- 
ion, and  that  the  blended  power  of  the  whole  gives  at 
length,  to  the  healing  art  as  well  as  to  industries  of  every 
other  kind,  increasing  vigor  and  certainty.  Such  is  the 
virtue  of  meditations  and  systematic  experiments  under- 
taken without  any  concern  for  the  useful;  but  precisely 
because  this  manifold  and  painstaking  evolution  is  per- 
formed unconsciously,  to  those  who  are  its  workmen,  under 
the  influence  of  a  small  number  of  general  ideas  of  which 
philosophy  is  the  perpetual  source,  it  results  that  the 
sciences,  enriched  by  philosophy,  minister  in  their  turn 
to  its  advance  and  perfection.1 

1  This  essay  may  properly  be  completed  by  noting  the  labors  which 
have  lately  led  Rabuteau  to  suggest  and  recommend  the  protochloride 
of  iron  as  that  salt  of  iron  which  is  most  readily  absorbed,  and  best 
adapted  to  the  treatment  of  the  many  diseases  in  which  preparations  of 
iron  are  required. 


ANIMAL  GRAFTS  AND  REGENERATIONS. 

SCIENTIFIC  examinations  followed  out  by  the  method 
of  experiment  are  usually  of  a"  kind  which  either  aids  in 
completing  theoretical  conceptions  as  to  the  world,  or  else 
serves  to  stimulate  useful  applications  in  the  region  of  in- 
dustry and  the  arts.  They  sometimes  join  both  these  ad- 
vantageous objects.  The  subject — an  entirely  new  one — 
of  animal  grafting  and  regeneration  presents  this  twofold 
interest  in  a  very  high  degree.  It  sheds  light  on  physio- 
logical theories,  and  supplies  medical  practice  with  novel 
resources ;  but  it  possesses  another  character  of  marked 
singularity  in  this  respect,  that  the  positive  results  it  yields 
contribute  at  once  to  confirm  the  boldest  conjectures  of 
philosophic  genius  in  past  times,  and  to  authorize  the  most 
daring  hopes  indulged  by  naturalists  who  have  faith  in 
man's  omnipotence  in  times  to  come.  It  is  our  design  to 
give  a  succinct  demonstration  of  this  truth. 


At  the  opening  of  the  eighteenth  century,  hardly  any 
other  instance  was  known  of  the  case  of  reproduction  of 
organs  in  animals  except  that  of  the  lizard's  tail,  which 
grows  again  after  having  been  cut  off.  At  least,  savants 
knew  no  others,  or  rather  they  denied  and  classed  with 
fables  the  declarations  of  fishermen  regarding  the  regenera- 
tion of  the  limbs  of  crawfish,  lobsters,  etc.  Reaumur  de- 
termined, in  1712,  to  get  at  the  truth  as  to  these  stories, 


230  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

and  undertook  experiments.  "  Having  an  opportunity," 
he  says,  "  to  examine  the  shores  of  the  ocean,  which  are 
crowded  with  a  vast  number  of  crabs,  a  creature  something 
of  the  nature  of  crawfish,  I  could  not  escape  the  suspicion 
that  philosophers  were  wrong  in  this  matter,  and  common 
people  right."  Reaumur  took  lobsters  and  crabs,  removed 
one  or  several  of  their  limbs,  and  shut  up  the  creatures  so 
mutilated  in  reservoirs  communicating  with  sea-water.  At 
the  end  of  a  few  months  he  was  astonished  to  find  that 
new  legs  had  taken  the  place  of  those  that  had  been  re- 
moved. He  repeated  his  experiments  with  crawfish  also, 
and  described,  with  the  precision  which  has  given  him  re- 
nown, the  mechanical  method  of  these  new  growths. 

Thirty  years  later,  Abraham  Trembley,  while  walking 
near  a  lake  at  the  Hague,  remarked  in  it  certain  fine  green 
filaments,  provided  with  appendages,  and  looking  like  vege- 
tables. To  learn  whether  he  was  really  dealing  with  plants, 
he  cut  one  of  them  into  several  bits.  The  separated  parts 
soon  reproduced  each  a  complete  whole,  and  these  individ- 
ual wholes  moved,  changed  their  place,  and  seized  insects 
with  their  arms  to  carry  them  into  their  digestive  cavities. 
They  were  fresh-water  polyps,  true  animals.  Trembley 
learned  that,  when  one  of  these  polyps  was  cut  in  two,  the 
head  reproduced  the  tail,  and  the  tail  the  head.  He  cut 
two  of  them  lengthwise,  and  joined  them  in  a  graft ;  in- 
stead of  a  polyp  with  eight  arms,  he  had  one  with  sixteen. 
A  short  time  afterward  Charles  Bonnet  repeated  Trembley 's 
experiments  on  the  reproduction  of  the  polyp,  and  tried 
others  on  a  fresh-water  worm  called  the  naiad.  He  re- 
marked that  this  worm,  like  the  polyp,  grows  again  those 
of  its  parts  that  are  removed.  He  made  like  trials  with 
the  earthworm,  and  proved  to  his  great  astonishment  that 
this  highly-complex  animal,  which  has  so  many  rings,  with 
delicate  locomotive  organs  attached  to  each  ring,  which 
has,  too,  digestive  and  generative  systems,  etc.,  possessed 


ANIMAL  GRAFTS  AND  REGENERATIONS.  £31 

a  like  power  of  reproduction.  If  considerable  parts  of  its 
body,  either  in  the  region  of  the  head  or  that  of  the  tail, 
are  removed,  these  fragments  grow  again  in  a  very  short 
time.  Bonnet  saw  a  worm  shoot  out  twelve  heads  in  suc- 
cession in  this  manner.  At  almost  the  same  period,  Spal- 
lanzani  went  even  further  than  the  famous  Geneva  natural- 
ist. He  cut  off  the  horns  and  even  part  of  the  head  of  the 
shell-snail,  and  saw  them  grow  out  again.  He  cut  off  the 
feet  and  tail  of  the  water-salamander,  and  remarked  their 
restoration  in  the  same  way.  This  last  fact,  more  extraor- 
dinary than  all  the  former  ones,  occasioned  general  sur- 
prise. In  fact,  the  feet  and  the  tail  of  the  salamander 
contain  bones,  nerves,  muscles,  the  reproduction  of  which 
seemed  impossible.  Certainly,  the  tail  removed  from  the 
land-lizard  had  been  observed  to  grow  again,  but  without 
bony  vertebrae.  On  the  contrary,  the  salamander's  tail 
grew  anew  with  its  complete  bony  frame,  and  of  its  original 
size.  The  untiring  Italian  experimenter  also  showed  that 
the  legs  and  tails  of  salamanders  may  be  amputated  several 
times,  and  the  same  organ  reproduced  many  times  over, 
with  the  same  vitality. 

These  memorable  experiments  of  Reaumur,  Trembley, 
Bonnet,  and  Spallanzani,  on  the  regeneration  of  animals, 
of  which  Leibnitz  had  long  before  conjectured  the  results, 
made  a  deep  impression  on  Buffon's  mind.  He  not  only 
perceived  in  them  very  curious  facts  of  natural  history,  but 
he  also  believed,  as  Bonnet  did,  that  they  gave  force  to 
certain  ideas  of  a  very  high  order.  He  discovered  in  them 
a  wonderful  demonstration  of  that  conception  of  Leibnitz, 
that  animated  beings  are  made  up  of  an  infinite  number  of 
small  parts,  more  or  less  resembling  each  other,  that  is, 
that  life  does  not  dwell  in  the  whole,  but  in  each  single 
one  of  its  unseen  elements ;  or,  in  other  words,  to  use  a 
phrase  of  Bordeu's,  that  the  general  life  is  nothing  else 
than  the  sum  jof  a  great  number  of  special  lives.  That 


232  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

was  a  splendid  period  in  the  history  of  the  sciences,  at 
which  observation,  proving  the  intuitions  of  genius  true, 
exhibited  by  instances  so  astonishing  the  composition  of 
the  organized  individual  to  be  such  that  every  one  of  the 
living  molecules  that  make  it  up  has  in  itself  a  principle 
of  activity  and  of  individual  development.  Whatever  cor- 
rections need  to  be  applied  to  the  way  in  which  Buffon  and 
Bonnet,  after  Leibnitz,  have  unfolded  that  doctrine,  it  re- 
mains, in  its  essential  tenor,  the  starting-point  of  a  rich 
evolution  for  biology,  and  the  true  expression  of  what  is 
real. 

The  experiments  just  mentioned  have  been  often  re- 
peated and  ingeniously  varied  by  naturalists.  Little  fresh- 
water worms,  to  which  the  name  of  planar  ii  has  been  given, 
have  been  a  subject  of  study  to  several  savants,  among 
others  to  Draparnaud,  Moquin-Tandon,  and  De  Bilge's. 
The  latter  cut  in  two  a  number  of  single  specimens  of 
the  largest  kind,  either  across  or  lengthwise,  and  he  ob- 
served each  fragment  build  itself  anew,  in  twelve  or  fifteen 
days  in  winter,  and  four  or  five  in  summer,  the  head  pro- 
ducing a  sucker  and  a  tail,  and  the  tail  a  head  and  a  sucker, 
and  the  piece  in  the  middle  sometimes  keeping  its  sucker, 
sometimes  losing  it  and  again  forming  it,  together  with  a 
head  and  a  tail.  Immediately  upon  the  cutting,  the  outside 
bulges  up  like  a  cushion,  while  the  centre  shows  the  pulp 
exposed,  and  on  this  centre  part  the  first  outlines  of  the 
renewed  portions  make  their  appearance.  A  single  one 
divided  thus  gives  birth  to  several  new  ones,  the  size  of 
(  which,  at  first  proportional  to  the  dimensions  of  the  frag- 
ment, very  quickly  grows  up  to  that  of  the  original  whole. 
More  lately,  Vulpian  cut  off  the  tail  of  a  young  frog,  still 
inclosed  in  the  egg,  and  put  it  in  water.  This  rudiment 
of  a  tail  maintained  its  life  there,  and  developed  regularly, 
passing  through  all  the  phases  of  its  embryonic  existence. 
Having  reached  the  condition  of  perfect  organization,  its 


ANIMAL  GRAFTS  AND  REGENERATIONS.  233 

life  ceased.  Not  long  ago,  Philippeaux  noted  the  entire 
restoration  of  the  spleen  in  animals  from  which  that  organ 
had  been  removed. 

Charles  Legros,  who  has  undertaken  of  late  years  many 
interesting  experiments  upon  regenerations,  has  discovered 
that  time  takes  an  important  part  in  these  phenomena. 
The  tail  of  a  lizard  grows  out  again  rapidly  as  to  its  out- 
ward shape  ;  in  two  or  three  months  the  severed  organ  re- 
appears with  its  usual  length  and  thickness  ;  but  the  inte- 
rior is  unlike  that  of  regular  tails,  containing,  as  it  does, 
nerves,  muscles,  and  vessels,  but  no  vertebra?.  This  text- 
ure remains  unaltered  for  a  long  time,  and  naturalists  had 
inferred  from  this  that  the  bones  of  the  lizard's  tail  are  not 
reproduced.  Legros  has  watched  the  advance  of  develop- 
ment in  this  organ  for  several  years  continuously,  and  has 
noted  the  appearance  of  vertebrae  at  the  end  of  two  years. 
This  savant  experimented  with  green  lizards.  The  re- 
stored tail  continued  gray  for  a  long  time,  and  did  not  as- 
sume the  color  of  the  rest  of  the  body  before  the  beginning 
of  the  third  year.  In  another  case  Legros  cut  off  the  tail 
of  a  dormouse  at  the  beginning  of  winter.  The  wound 
shaped  itself  into  a  sort  of  pad,  which  lengthened,  became 
covered  with  hair,  and  attained  nearly  the  same  length  as 
the  original  tail,  which  it  surpassed  in  thickness.  Un- 
luckily, the  animal's  hibernation  was  not  perfect ;  it  fre- 
quently awoke,  and  at  the  end  of  three  months  it  died. 
There  had  been  no  opportunity  for  a  complete  restoration 
of  the  inner  parts  of  the  organ. 

To  these  recent  observations  must  be  added  those  made 
quite  lately  on  the  crawfish  by  Chantran.  This  skillful  and 
patient  observer  remarked  that  in  the  case  of  the  crawfish  the 
antennas  grow  out  during  the  time  that  intervenes  between 
one  shedding  of  the  shell  and  the  next,  that  is,  in  an  inter- 
val varying,  according  to  the  creature's  age,  from  six  weeks 

to  six  months.     The  claws  and  the  tail-plates  are  also  re- 
11 


234  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

produced,  but  much  more  slowly.  The  restoration  is  longer 
in  proportion  as  the  animal  is  older.  With  crawfish  under 
a  year  old,  all  the  severed  limbs  grow  again  in  about  sev- 
enty days.  In  the  case  of  full-grown  males,  their  complete 
restoration  requires  from  eighteen  months  to  two  years, 
and  with  females  from  three  to  four  years.  Chantran  dis- 
covered, moreover,  last  year,  a  strange  phenomenon  of  quite 
another  kind.  He  proved  by  experiment  that  crawfishes' 
eyes  are  reproduced  after  removal,  and  that  sometimes,  in 
place  of  an  eye  taken  out,  two  grow  again. 

This  is  what  experiment  has  confirmed  regarding  the 
reproduction  of  limbs  and  organs  in  animals.  We  must 
now  examine  in  what  way  the  tissues  are  restored.  All 
the  tissues  that  have  been  destroyed  in  the  full-grown  sub- 
ject— the  skin,  nerves,  muscles,  bones — are  capable  of  being 
regenerated,  and  they  are  regenerated,  by  going  through  a 
series  of  phases  identical  with  those  of  their  embryonic  de- 
velopment, of  their  generation  properly  so  called.  The  force 
which  has  brought  them  to  birth  is  the  same  force  which 
effects  their  new  birth.  In  every  case,  the  elements  of  the 
new  tissue  are  produced  exactly  like  those  of  the  old,  and 
these  phenomena,  in  no  wise  unusual  or  exceptional,  bear 
witness  once  again  to  the  unity  and  simplicity  of  physio- 
logical mechanical  action. 

The  epidermis  is  reproduced  with  the  greatest  ease. 
It  grows  again  as  the  hair  and  the  nails  do.  It  is  the  same 
tissue  with  them.  The  crystalline  humor  of  the  eye,  which 
may  be  considered  like  the  substance  of  the  epidermis,  also 
grows  again  after  it  has  been  removed.  At  least  this  is  the 
result  of  the  very  numerous  experiments  performed  by  Mil- 
liot  on  dogs  and  rabbits.  That  physiologist  constantly 
observed  that,  after  effecting  with  one  of  these  animals  the 
removal  of  that  biconvex  lens  which  is  one  of  the  chief  or- 
gans of  the  system  of  sight,  it  was  restored  after  a  few 
months.  The  disease  known  by  the  name  of  cataract  con- 


ANIMAL  GRAFTS  AND  REGENERATIONS.  235 

sists  in  the  loss  of  its  transparency  by  the  crystalline  humor, 
and  in  its  becoming  opaque,  so  that  the  rays  of  light  no 
longer  pass  through  it.  The  only  remedy  for  this  disorder 
in  the  eye  is  the  operation  called  that  for  cataract,  which 
consists  in  removing  the  crystalline  lens.  The  eye  thus 
operated  on  does  not  regain  its  original  clearness  of  sight, 
but  it  can  perceive  light  and  outward  objects  much  better 
than  with  its  crystalline  lens  impenetrable  to  rays  of  light. 
The  crystalline  humor  removed  in  such  a  case  from  the  hu- 
man subject  is  not  renovated ;  but,  by  pursuing  investiga- 
tions of  the  kind  which  Milliot  has  begun,  we  may  hope  to 
discover  the  conditions  of  such  a  reproduction,  which  would 
be  priceless  to  surgery.  Restoration  of  the  skin  is  noticed 
in  all  ordinary  scars.  The  tissue  of  scars  is  made  up  of 
the  usual  anatomical  elements  composing  the  derma,  that 
is,  chiefly  of  laminated  or  elastic  fibres.  The  vessels  that 
are  torn  or  broken,  the  severed  tendons,  in  like  manner,  re- 
pair with  the  greatest  ease  those  losses  of  substance  they 
have  suffered.  In  a  word,  in  all  these  organs  there  is  a 
tendency,  observed  by  surgeons  of  every  age,  toward  re- 
generation, a  plastic  and  radiant  force  which  makes  itself 
known  by  an  unceasing  elaboration  of  blastema,  within 
which  new  anatomical  elements  grow  forth  to  supply  the 
void  of  those  removed. 

Regeneration  of  nerves  was  remarked  for  the  first  time 
by  Michaelis,  Cruikshank,  Monro,  and  Haighton,  in  the  lat- 
ter part  of  the  last  century.  In  1801,  Bichat  expressed  a 
perfect  theory  of  it,  with  admirable  clearness.  Upon  in- 
terruption of  the  continuity  of  a  nerve,  the  severed  part 
can  reproduce  itself  after  a  certain  time.  When,  for  in- 
stance, a  segment  a  centimetre  long  is  cut  out  from  the 
sciatic  nerve,  there  is  at  first  remarked  a  change  in  the 
nerve-substance  of  the  ends  produced  by  cutting ;  then,  six 
weeks  or  two  months  after  the  operation,  we  see  a  grayish 
bunch  proceeding  from  the  point  of  one  of  the  ends, 


236  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

which  directs  itself  toward  and  soon  rejoins  the  opposite 
end.  This  bunch  is  made  up  of  laminated  tissue  and 
nerve-tubes  more  slender  than  the  original  tubes  ;  but  by 
slow  degrees  it  enlarges,  grows  whiter,  its  fibres  become 
complete,  and,  after  a  lapse  of  from  four  to  six  months,  we 
have  a  nerve-cord  of  new  formation.  Such  a  cord  is  repro- 
duced even  when  a  part  of  the  nerve  six  centimetres  in 
length  has  been  removed.  During  the  time  of  restoration 
of  the  nerve-substance  we  remark  the  gradual  reestablish- 
ment  of  its  sensor,  or  motor,  or  mixed  functions.  Vulpian 
and  Philippeaux,  who  have  studied  this  subject  particu- 
larly, have  ascertained  that  nerves  absolutely  severed  from 
the  nerve-centres  can,  after  a  period  of  change,  thus  regain 
their  normal  structure  and  properties.  But  the  most  in- 
structive experiment  made  by  these  physiologists  consists 
in  joining  together  the  ends  of  two  nerves  having  quite 
different  functions,  as  for  instance  the  motor  nerve  of  the 
tongue  and  the  pneumogastric  nerve,  and  in  establishing 
anatomical  connection  and  physiological  communion  be- 
tween two  nerve-cords  which,  in  their  usual  state,  have  no 
mutual  relation. 

In  1867,  Legros  discovered  the  reproduction  of  carti- 
lage, which  till  then  had  been  regarded  as  impossible.  He 
made  his  investigation  upon  dogs  and  rabbits,  in  whose 
cartilaginous  tissues  he  had  made  free  incisions,  and  at  the 
end  of  about  two  months  he  noted  a  thorough  renovation 
of  that  tissue.  This  is  the  same  physiologist  who  first 
proved  the  reproduction  of  smooth  muscular  tissue,  that  is, 
tissue  which  is  the  organ  of  involuntary  movement,  such 
as  that  of  the  intestine.  To  exhaust  the  list  of  the  organic 
tissues,  it  remained  to  be  seen  whether  the  muscular  fibres 
in  the  living  animal  can  restore,  by  means  of  like  fibres, 
the  losses  of  substance  they  have  undergone.  The  following 
year  Dubreuil  was  able  to  answer  that  question  in  the  af- 
firmative. He  cut  certain  muscles  of  Guinea-pigs  through 


ANIMAL  GRAFTS  AND  REGENERATIONS.  237 

the  middle,  and,  on  examining  the  organ  some  months  after- 
ward, he  observed  complete  reunion  between  the  separated 
parts,  and  ascertained  that  the  solution  of  continuity  was 
filled  up  by  a  fresh  growth  of  muscular  tissue.  Thus  all 
the  tissues  of  the  animal  system  can  be  reproduced  in  the 
grown-up  subject,  and  these  regenerations  are  uniformly 
identical  operations  with  those  which  have  as  their  result 
the  first  formation  and  the  development  of  the  very  same 
tissues  in  the  embryo  or  in  the  young  animal. 

In  the  practice  of  the  surgical  art  the  knowledge  of 
these  facts  of  reproduction  has  been  the  occasion  of  more 
or  less  remarkable  inventions  and  operative  methods,  some 
of  which  are  as  yet  under  investigation.  Those  which  re- 
late to  the  renovation  of  bony  tissue  have  interested  the 
public  peculiarly  of  late  years.  It  has  always  been  known 
that,  when  a  bone  is  broken,  the  solution  of  continuity  in 
it  is  filled  up,  after  a  certain  time,  by  a  portion  of  bone  of 
fresh  formation,  a  true  bony  scar,  a  callus.  It  was  not  be- 
fore the  middle  of  the  last  century  that  a  French  physiolo- 
gist, Duhamel,  and  after  him  a  Neapolitan  physician  settled 
at  Paris,  Troja,  investigating  the  phenomenon  of  callus 
closely,  discovered  its  physiological  mechanism.  They 
believed  they  could  observe  that  the  chief  agent  in  the 
elaboration  of  bone  is  a  thin  fibrous  sheath  applied  and 
adhering  closely  all  around  the  bones,  the  membrane  called 
the  periosteum.1  Their  experiments  were  neither  numerous 
nor  striking  enough  to  disclose  to  surgeons  the  advantage 
that  might  be  gained  from  the  knowledge  of  the  bone- 
making  property  peculiar  to  the  periosteum.  The  atten- 
tion of  practitioners  did  not  begin  to  be  drawn  to  this  point 
until  later,  toward  1830,  by  the  labors  of  a  professor  at 

1  The  bones  may  be  regarded  as  formed  of  three  concentric  layers, 
each  inner  one  sheathed  in  another — the  inmost  one  the  marrow,  next 
the  bony  substance  properly  so  called,  which  is  covered  by  the  perios- 
teum. 


238  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

Wurzburg,  Bernhard  Heine.  He  removed  more  or  less 
extensive  portions  of  bone  from  living  animals.  In  some 
cases  he  effected  the  removal  of  half  of  the  bones  he  oper- 
ated on.  The  parts  destroyed  were  reproduced  after  a  few 
months,  and  the  limbs  were  restored  to  their  original  con- 
dition. 

Still  more  famous  than  Heine's  are  the  patient  and 
skillful  labors  of  Flourens.  The  varied  experiments  of 
this  learned  physiologist  clearly  established  the  truth  of 
the  first  observation  of  Duhamel.  In  the  words  of  Flourens, 
"  Since  it  is  the  periosteum  which  produces  the  bone,  I 
must  of  course  be  able  to  get  bone  wherever  I  can  have 
periosteum,  that  is  to  say,  wherever  I  can  succeed  in  car- 
rying or  introducing  periosteum,  I  shall  be  able  to  increase 
the  number  of  an  animal's  bones ;  if  I  choose,  I  shall  suc- 
ceed in  giving  it  bones  which  naturally  it  did  not  have." 
Among  other  experiments  made  to  prove  the  truth  of  this 
proposition,  Flourens  conceived  the  idea  of  piercing  a  bone 
and  inserting  in  it  a  little  silver  tube.  The  periosteum 
engaged  in  this  tube  became  thicker  there,  swelled,  and 
produced  a  cartilage  which  soon  became  bone.  A  skillful 
surgeon  of  Lyons,  Oilier,  cut  out  long  ribbons  of  periosteum 
in  an  animal,  leaving  them  still  adhering  to  the  bone  by  a 
little  strip,  and  then  twisted  them  round  the  neighboring 
muscles.  After  a  certain  time,  this  ossified  periosteum 
had  produced  bones  of  circular  shape,  in  spirals,  in  figures 
of  eight,  etc.,  according  to  the  manner  of  twisting  the  peri- 
osteal  strips  about  the  parts  near  them. 

In  all  these  experiments,  periosteum  was  used  provided 
with  the  very  delicate  layer  which  adheres  to  it,  and  sepa- 
rates it  from  the  bone.  Now,  Robin  has  proved  that  in  the 
adult  this  layer  is  formed  of  bony  cells,  and  of  cartilagi- 
nous substance  when  a  bone  in  course  of  development  is 
operated  on.  It  is  in  this  that  the  bone-making  power 
dwells,  and,  when  the  periosteum  is  stripped  of  this,  it  be- 


ANIMAL  GRAFTS  AND   REGENERATIONS.  239 

comes  unfit  for  ossification.  Robin  and  Dubreuil  have  also 
proved  that  bony  tissue  may  be  formed  without  any  carti- 
lage existing  beforehand,  without  any  intervention  of  mem- 
brane, and  may  proceed  directly  from  a  bone  deprived  of 
membrane.  These  discoveries,  without  taking  from  the  peri- 
osteum the  evident  share  which  it  has  in  producing  renova- 
tions of  bone,  give  a  conception  of  its  mechanical  action 
which  differs  from  that  which  physiologists  had  admitted. 
They  prove  that  really,  in  experiments  of  the  kind  tried  by 
Duhamel,  Heine,  Flourens,  it  is  bone  which  produces  bone, 
as  the  severed  nerve  produces  nerve.  The  cartilaginous 
or  bony  layer  adhering  to  the  periosteum  is  in  fact  noth- 
ing else  than  bone  in  process  of  formation ;  and  whenever, 
whether  by  means  of  the  periosteum  or  by  means  of  an 
irritation,  the  reproduction  of  a  certain  quantity  of  bone 
is  procured,  it  is  because,  in  the  first  place,  conditions  fit 
for  the  production  of  cartilage  have  been  brought  about. 
These  remarks  will  allow  us  to  understand  and  to  give  a 
rapid  estimate  of  the  value  of  surgical  methods  founded  on 
the  knowledge  of  these  facts. 

Diseases  of  the  bones  are  numerous.  Independently 
of  those  cases  in  which  they  are  directly  injured  by  pro- 
jectiles, they  are  liable  to  inflammations,  tumors,  and  decay 
of  every  kind.  These  diseases  are  slow,  in  proportion  to 
the  slowness  of  vital  elaborations  in  those  organs,  but  they 
are  not  the  less  destructive,  and  they  always  end  by  bring- 
ing about  a  more  or  less  considerable  corruption  of  the 
substance  of  the  bones.  It  is  then  necessary  that  the  mat- 
ters given  off  by  the  diseased  bone  should  be  cleared  away : 
the  mortified  portions  must  be  got  rid  of.  The  limb  very 
soon  swells,  and  becomes  painful.  Pieces  make  their  way 
through  the  skin,  suppurations  are  set  up,  and,  if  art  does 
not  interfere,  the  patient  is  led  by  exhaustion  to  a  miser- 
able death.  To  this  concourse  of  evils  surgery  opposes 
difficult  operations.  It  cuts  deep  openings,  it  loosens  the 


240  NATURE   AND  LIFE. 

tissues,  it  gives  an  outlet  to  whatever  must  pass  away,  it 
modifies  the  diseased  surfaces;  but  there  are  cases  in 
which  neither  Nature  nor  art  can  avail  further,  and  in  which 
the  bone  is  so  far  gone  that  amputation  becomes  the  only 
chance  of  safety  for  the  patient.  In  these  desperate  situa- 
tions surgeons  have  recourse  to  methods  which  allow  them 
to  effect  a  regeneration  of  the  bone  destroyed  by  the  work- 
ing of  disease.  The  most  useful  of  these  methods,  due  to 
Se"dillot,  is  that  of  scooping  out. 

The  operation  of  scooping,  as  it  is  practised  since  the 
beautiful  experiments  of  Sedillot,  is  very  simple  in  itself. 
The  skin,  flesh,  and  periosteum,  are  cut  through,  down  to 
the  injured  or  diseased  bone,  and,  when  that  is  once  laid 
bare,  it  is  attacked  with  the  gouge,  chisel,  and  mallet.  It 
is  cut  out  and  shaved  away  so  as  to  remove  the  entire  dis- 
eased portion,  and  to  spare  all  that  has  suffered  no  altera- 
tion. Thus  reduced  to  its  sound  parts  and  layers,  the  ex- 
cavated bone  by  slow  degrees  repairs  its  losses.  The  de- 
stroyed substance  is  renewed,  a  new  bony  tissue  fills  the 
vacancies  shaped  by  the  operator's  gouge,  and  after  a  few 
months  the  organ,  which  has  never  lost  its  form,  is  again 
restored  to  the  conditions  of  common  vitality.  Sometimes, 
no  doubt,  the  scene,  in  which,  to  borrow  Hippocrates's 
thought,  the  surgeon  himself,  in  the  midst  of  another's 
agon}^,  endures  his  own  tortures,  becomes  complicated  in 
an  unforeseen  way,  and  dangerous  risks  make  it  more  tragic 
still ;  but  art  consists  precisely  in  foreseeing  and  subdu- 
ing these,  and  it  is  in  this  that  the  superior  practitioner  is 
eminent  above  another. 

While  Sedillot  teaches  and  proves  that  it  is  necessary, 
in  the  interest  of  the  reproduction  of  bone  and  the  restora- 
tion of  the  limb,  to  get  rid  only  of  the  diseased  part  of  the 
endangered  bone,  and  to  preserve  its  sound  layer  clinging 
to  the  periosteum,  some  surgeons  maintain  rather  that  every 
thing  should  be  removed,  except  the  periosteum,  that  is  to 


ANIMAL   GRAFTS  AND  REGENERATIONS. 

say,  that  the  bone  should  be  withdrawn  from  it,  almost  as 
one  draws  the  finger  out  of  a  glove.  They  maintain  that, 
this  membrane  being  the  exclusive  agent  in  the  production 
of  the  bones,  they  themselves  may  be  cut  away  completely, 
and  that  they  must  be  reproduced  entirely,  so  long  as  the 
membrane  is  preserved. 

Two  distinguished  practitioners,  Larghi,  of  Verceil,  and 
after  him  Oilier,  of  Lyons,  have  advocated  that  mode  of 
operating  which  has  received  the  name  of  sub-periosteal 
resection.  The  propriety  of  such  a  method  of  operating, 
after  having  been  the  occasion  of  doubts  among  surgeons 
who  were  in  the  way  of  examining  it  directly,  is  at  this  time 
unanimously  condemned.  The  reasons  against  it  are  deci- 
sive. Indeed,  how  can  it  be  admitted  that  the  mere  peri- 
osteum, that  is  to  say,  a  soft  sheath,  without  support  or  firm- 
ness, exposed  by  a  cruel  operation,  more  or  less  impaired 
by  dissection,  should  effect  the  reproduction  of  a  bone  with 
its  proper  shape  and  size,  when  it  is  so  difficult  at  any  rate 
to  effect  the  consolidation  of  a  simple  fracture  without 
shortening  ?  Would  not  this  sheath,  lost  in  the  midst  of 
the  muscular  mass,  be  in  danger  of  inflammations  of  every 
kind,  and  exposed  especially  to  the  influence  of  many  me- 
chanical causes  which  will  be  apt  to  distort  it,  and  conse- 
quently to  cause  the  production  of  an  irregular  bone,  short- 
ened, and  useless  for  serviceable  action?  Such  are  the 
fears  and  objections  which  impressed  surgeons,  and  dis- 
suaded them  from  sub-periosteal  resections.  These  opera- 
tions have  in  some  cases  allowed  the  renovation  of  the  re- 
moved bone,  but  under  such  conditions  that  the  limb  has 
lost  all  strength  and  mobility,  and  has  not  escaped  endless 
and  fatal  suppuration.  The  question  in  surgery  is  not 
merely  as  to  reproducing  bones,  they  must  also  be  reno- 
vated with  sufficient  regularity  of  shape  and  sufficient  firm- 
ness of  structure  to  insure  full  use  of  the  limbs.  Now,  such 
a  result  can  only  be  gained  by  preserving  the  regularity 


242  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

and  fixed  consistency  of  the  surfaces,  sheaths,  or  moulds, 
in  which  the  cells  of  the  new  bones  are  to  deposit  and 
grow  together.  The  method  of  cutting  out  assures  the  ex- 
istence of  such  a  firm  and  unchanging  mould  by  keeping  a 
sheath  of  bone  in  the  best  conditions  to  procure  a  new 
growth  of  bony  tissue,  while  that  of  sub-periosteal  resec- 
tions expects  the  regeneration  of  the  organ  out  of  a  perios- 
teum unsupported,  injured,  weakened,  and  bent  under  the 
influence  of  muscular  contraction.  Sedillot,  who  has  the 
finest  feeling  for  ancient  medical  art,  and  understands  it 
thoroughly,  has  not  left  us  in  ignorance  that  Celsus  had  al- 
ready, a  little  less  than  a  thousand  years  ago,  proposed  cut- 
ting out  of  the  bones ;  but  the  teaching  of  Celsus  had  not 
been  accepted  in  practice.  The  famous  French  surgeon 
rescued  these  precepts  from  oblivion,  proved  their  useful- 
ness and  importance  by  new  arguments,  explained  the 
causes  that  warrant  them,  and  their  success,  and  has  thus 
restored  to  the  skillful  and  enlightened  practice  of  the  art 
one  of  the  most  precious  means  of  relief  for  the  formidable 
injuries  and  diseases  of  the  bones. 

II. 

Life  is  a  searching  and  expanding  force  which  strives 
to  seize  upon  all  that  comes  within  the  range  of  its  activity. 
We  have  just  seen  that  it  fills  up  the  voids  produced  by 
the  removal  of  certain  organic  parts  ;  we  are  now  about  to 
see  that  it  wins,  by  inverse  operation,  certain  parts  which  it 
adds  to  living  beings ;  for  grafts  are  nothing  less  than  liv- 
ing fragments  pieced  on  to  an  organism  already  complete. 
In  the  vegetable  graft,  the  grafted  part  does  not  make  an 
integral  portion  of  the  single  whole  to  which  it  has  been 
transplanted.  It  does  not  live  with  the  same  life.  It  de- 
velops itself  after  a  kind  of  parasitic  fashion  at  the  expense 
of  the  other,  like  misletoe  on  the  oak ;  and,  whether  the 
grafted  fragment  be  or  be  not  of  the  same  species  as  the 


ANIMAL   GRAFTS  AND  REGENERATIONS.  243 

tree  to  which  it  is  united,  it  remains  always  physiologically 
distinct  from  it.  The  case  is  not  the  same  with  animals. 

Animal  grafting  consists,  in  a  general  way,  in  fixing 
upon  some  point  in  an  individual  a  part  taken  from  another 
point  in  the  same  individual,  or  from  a  different  subject,  and 
in  effecting  the  connection  of  the  grafted  part  with  the  or- 
ganism which  serves  for  its  siipport,  in  such  a  way  that  it 
may  become  completely  incorporated  with  the  latter,  and 
may  live  with  the  same  life,  and  follow  the  same  physio- 
logical course.  We  may  thus  transfer  from  one  animal  to 
another  either  fragments  of  tissue,  or  whole  organs  in  their 
completeness,  or  simple  anatomical  elements.  The  cells  of 
the  choroid  of  the  eye,  placed  beneath  the  skin  of  an  animal, 
preserve  their  vitality  in  that  new  region,  and  there  even 
become  the  starting-point  for  a  more  or  less  extensive  forma- 
tion of  similar  cells.  Transfusion  of  blood  is  nothing  but 
the  introduction  of  red  globules  borrowed  from  one  organ- 
ism into  a  different  organism.  This  operation  succeeds, 
even  when  the  blood  passes  from  one  individual  to  another 
of  quite  a  different  species.  Thus  the  blood  of  a  mammal 
may  be  introduced  into  the  veins  of  a  frog,  and  those  glob- 
ules be  found  in  the  latter  after  some  time,  still  living*,  and 
easily  distinguishable  as  those  of  the  superior  being.  We 
can  without  difficulty  graft  upon  a  cock's  comb  either  spurs 
taken  from  the  same  bird,  or  teeth  from  a  mammal ;  but 
such  facts  have  hitherto  had  no  interest  other  than  that  of 
curiosity,  and  need  not  detain  us. 

We  have  seen  that  bones  may  readily  be  reproduced  by 
means  of  the  periosteum.  This  property  has  suggested  to 
some  experimenters  the  idea  of  transplanting  fragments  of 
periosteum  into  different  parts,  so  as  to  learn  whether  they 
would  there  occasion  a  formation  of  bone.  Oilier,  among 
others,  has  shown  that  the  periosteal  membrane,  quite  sepa- 
rated from  the  bone  and  grafted  at  some  remote  point,  pro- 
duces upon  its  deeper  side  a  new  bone.  He  effected  a  like 


244  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

reproduction  by  grafting  not  the  whole  periosteum,  but 
merely  the  cells  which  compose  the  rudimentary  layer  ad- 
hering to  that  membrane,  and  which  are  the  true  producers 
of  the  elaboration  of  bone.  Goujon  has  brought  about  the 
production  of  bone  by  grafting  marrow.  The  insertion  of 
a  few  medullary  cells  beneath  a  dog's  skin,  for  instance, 
caused  the  development  of  a  small  bone  at  the  spot  in  a  few 
months.  Surgeons  at  one  time  hoped  to  gain  some  advan- 
tage from  these  facts  in  the  artificial  renovation  of  the  bony 
parts.  Some  of  them  affirm  that  they  have  even  made 
new  noses ;  but  it  is  now  clearly  proved  that  noses  pro- 
cured by  grafting  with  periosteum  or  with  marrow  have 
an  insuperable  tendency  to  be  reabsorbed,  and  to  disappear 
after  a  longer  or  shorter  time,  on  account  of  the  unfavorable 
conditions,  with  regard  to  nutrition,  in  which  they  exist. 
With  no  vascular  or  nerve  connections,  they  are  like  for- 
eign bodies  in  the  place  where  they  are  developed. 

We  may  class  with  the  grafting  of  bones  those  experi- 
ments, still  in  course  of  execution,  in  which  Magitot  and 
Legros  are  engaged,  relating  to  the  grafting  of  teeth.  The 
teeth  grow  out  of  a  little  sac  called  the  dental  follicle,  in 
which  are  distinguished  the  organ  of  the  ivory,  or  bulb,  and 
the  organ  devoted  to  the  growth  of  the  enamel.  By  graft- 
ing upon  a  full-grown  dog  a  complete  follicle  taken  from  a 
dog  just  born,  these  experimenters  have  noted  the  regular 
development  of  the  germ  and  the  production  of  a  complete 
tooth.  The  organ  of  the  enamel,  grafted  by  itself,  did  not 
retain  life ;  the  germ  of  the  ivory,  on  the  contrary,  occa- 
sioned a  formation  of  regular  ivory.  Again,  when  the  follicle, 
grafted  in  its  entirety,  was  injured  during  the  experiment, 
whether  by  accident  or  purposely,  the  appearance  of  a  sort 
of  bony  tumor  was  noticed.  These  extremely  interesting  in- 
vestigations allow  us  to  hope  that  we  may  be  able  at  some 
time  to  produce,  in  clearly-defined  conditions,  the  physio- 
logical replacement  of  teeth  removed.  It  is  proper  to  re- 


ANIMAL  GRAFTS  AND  REGENERATIONS.  245 

mark,  indeed,  that  in  this  case  a  grafting  is  made  of  a  whole 
complete  organ,  with  a  structure  and  vascular  arrangements 
which  may  make  its  development  certain,  while  the  trans- 
plantation of  a  fragment  of  periosteum  or  of  marrow  has 
the  effect  of  isolating.and  encysting  it. 

The  most  exact  and  curious  experiments  that  have  been 
made  in  animal  grafting,  of  late  years,  are  due  to  Paul 
Bert.  This  learned  physiologist  has  shown  that,  if  the  tail 
of  a  young  rat  be  cut  off  and  inserted,  after  flaying  it,  under 
the  animal's  skin,  in  any  part  of  the  body,  it  adheres  to  the 
place  and  continues  to  develop  there.  The  organ  gains 
in  size  almost  as  rapidly  as  in  its  normal  conditions.  Bert 
has  also  practised  animal  layering.  He  flays  the  point  of 
a  rat's  tail,  inserts  the  end  in  a  hole  made  beneath  the  ani- 
mal's skin,  near  the  head,  for  instance,  and  joins  the  edges 
of  the  two  wounds  by  stitches  at  points.  The  parts  placed 
in  contact  quickly  unite,  and  the  tail,  thus  endowed  with 
the  shape  of  a  handle,  keeps  its  vitality.  If  it  is  then  cut 
at  any  point,  it  is  found  that  the  fragment  grafted  in  at  the 
head  preserves  its  physiological  properties.  The  vessels 
are  formed  again  in  it,  the  nerves  renew  their  life,  and  sen- 
sibility returns  by  degrees.  The  rat  is  thus  furnished  with 
a  sort  of  trunk  as  much  alive  as  its  other,  organs.  The  re- 
turn of  sensibility  in  this  trunk  proves  not  only  the  con- 
nection of  the  nerve-threads  of  such  an  appendix  with 
those  of  the  back,  but  also  the  possibility  of  the  propaga- 
tion of  sensor  nerve-action  in  an  opposite  direction  to  that 
it  previously  followed,  that  is  to  say,  the  power  of  the 
nerves  to  carry  impressions  in  a  centripetal  course  as  well 
as  in  a  centrifugal  one. 

Siamese  grafting  has  been  effected  by  Bert  under  ex- 
ceedingly interesting  conditions.  Strips  of  skin  are  sepa- 
rated by  cutting  along  the  opposite  sides  of  two  animals, 
and  by  means  of  these  ribbons  pressed  face  to  face,  and 
stitched  together,  the  two  subjects  are  sewed  into  union. 


246  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

After  a  few  days  the  connection  has  grown  cqmplete,  and 
we  have  such  a  pair  as  the  Siamese  twins.  Bert  kept  two 
white  rats  thus  banded  together  for  more  than  two  months ; 
but  they  lived  on  such  bad  terms  that  at  the  end  of  that 
time  it  was  necessary  to  separate  them.  By  poisoning  one 
of  two  animals  of  such  a  brace,  the  other  is  poisoned  also, 
thus  proving  that  there  is  complete  mutual  circulation  of 
blood.  Bert  effected  like  graftings  between  the  white  rat 
and  the  Norway  rat,  and  between  the  white  rat  and  the  Bar- 
bary  rat.  He  attempted  to  perform  them  between  animals 
of  different  species — between  a  rat  and  a  Guinea-pig,  be- 
tween a  rat  and  a  cat — but  the  success  was  never  complete  ; 
only  the  beginning  of  adherence  was  obtained.  Still  this 
failure  seems  to  depend  less  on  the  incompatibility  of  the 
tissues  themselves  than  on  the  difficulty  of  keeping  animals 
so  little  disposed  to  live  harmoniously  together  in  the  ne- 
cessary state  of  quiet.  Once  more,  Balbian  succeeded  in 
uniting  two  fragments  of  tails  taken  from  two  different 
young  bull-heads,  so  as  to  obtain  a  physiological  adhesion 
for  a  certain  length  of  time. 

If  the  interest  attached  to  such  experiments  is  rather 
philosophic  than  practical,  a  point  to  be  considered  here- 
after, this  is  not  the  case  with  those  which  obtain  as  results 
what  are  called  epidermic  grafts.  These  indeed  have  had 
the  privilege  of  attracting  the  highest  degree  of  attention 
from  physiologists,  and  particularly  from  surgeons.  We 
owe  to  a  Swiss  surgeon,  Reverdin,  formerly  an  interne  of 
the  Paris  hospitals,  the  discovery  and  the  first  application 
of  these.  Whenever,  after  a  surgical  operation,  a  burn  or 
a  wound,  the  skin  over  a  certain  extent  of  surface  is  de- 
stroyed, the  void  produced  is  filled  up  only  very  slowly 
by  means  of  a  growth  of  scar-tissue.  In  spite  of  the 
use  of  the  most  judicious  methods  of  dressing,  the  ex- 
posed surface  is  never  restored  but  with  difficulty.  In 
seeking  a  remedy  for  this  grave  inconvenience,  Reverdin 


ANIMAL  GRAFTS  AND  REGENERATIONS. 

conceived  the  idea  of  applying  over  such  wounds  a  shred 
of  healthy  skin,  taken  from  the  injured  subject  himself  or 
from  some  other  person.  The  first  attempts  were  under- 
taken in  1869,  in  the  Paris  hospitals,  and  were  crowned 
with  full  success.  Numerous  experiments  were  at  once 
made.  Gosseliri,  Guy  on,  Oilier,  Duplay,  Hergott,  and 
others,  in  France,  obtained  very  satisfactory  results.  Eng- 
lish, Russian,  and  German  practitioners  did  not  hesitate  to 
contribute  their  share  of  confirmatory  observations,  and  we 
may  be  allowed  to  say  that  at  this  day  epidermic  grafting 
has  taken  a  definite  place  in  surgical  practice.  This  does 
not  prevent  the  admission  that  it  presents  difficulties  of 
more  than  one  kind.  This  application  of  shreds  of  foreign 
substance  to  the  denuded  surface  of  a  wound  requires  ex- 
treme delicacy  of  attention  on  the  part  of  the  surgeon 
who  proposes  to  effect  it.  In  the  first  place,  an  attempt  to 
cover  the  entire  wound  by  one  single  grafting  would  not 
succeed ;  several  slips  of  very  small  dimensions  must  be 
applied,  the  progress  of  cicatrization  must  be  watched  day 
by  day,  the  strips  that  fail  to  adhere  replaced,  etc.  Usual- 
ly the  graft  is  complete  at  the  end  of  twenty-four  hours. 
At  that  time  the  transferred  part  forms  one  body  with  the 
wound,  by  the  intervention  of  cells  produced  in  the  inter- 
space between  them.  It  thus  follows  that  cicatrization  is 
completed  very  rapidly.  The  scar  is  firmer  and  more  pliant 
than  the  ordinary  ones,  and  does  not  exhibit,  as  they  do, 
any  disposition  to  contract.1 

The  name  given  to  this  process,  "  epidermic  graft,"  is 
not  quite  precise.  In  reality,  the  strips  used  in  such  a 
case  are  not  composed  of  epidermis  alone ;  to  procure 
them,  the  epidermis  is  detached  in  connection  with  the  thin 

1  Grafts  on  men  have  been  made  not  only  of  human  skin  but  of  skin 
borrowed  from  animals  also.  Dubreuil  has  lately  performed  some  curi- 
ous experiments  on  this  subject.  He  has  grafted  Guinea-pig's  skin  upon 
a  man. 


248  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

cellular  layer  (Malpighi's  layer)  on  which  it  directly  rests, 
and  this  condition  is  essential,  because  the  Malpighi  cells 
seem  to  be  the  seat  of  that.formative  elaboration  which  ef- 
fects the  adhesion  of  the  graft.  Since  Reverdin's  experi- 
ments, some  surgeons  have  attempted  to  transfer  the  whole 
complete  skin,  instead  of  the  epidermis.  Oilier  has  tried 
to  graft  large  cutaneous  strips,  comprising  the  whole 
thickness  of  the  skin.  The  chances  of  success  by  this  pro- 
cess seem  to  be  much  slighter,  and  nothing  as  yet  encour- 
ages us  to  regard  cutaneous  grafting,  properly  so  called,  as 
a  fortunate  operation. 

III. 

These  grafts,  in  which  we  see  an  organized  portion, 
severed  for  a  time  from  the  individual  whole  to  which  it 
belongs,  retain  the  springs  of  life  and  regain  its  functions 
when  it  is  transplanted  to  another  individual  even  of  a  dif- 
ferent species ;  these  regenerations,  in  which  we  see  de- 
stroyed organs  grow  again  with  their  original  forms  and 
their  properties,  living  fragments  reproducing  a  whole  com- 
plete being — are  facts  of  a  kind  to  yield  us,  if  suitably  ex- 
amined, valuable  knowledge  as  to  the  essence  of  vitality  it- 
self. They  prove  that  it  does  not  depend  on  an  indivisible 
spirit  animating  the  body  (mens  agitat  molem),  but  on  an 
activity  distributed  among  the  minute  particles  that  make 
it  up,  consubstantial  with  these  particles,  and  as  variable 
in  its  characteristics  as  they  themselves  are  in  their  struct- 
ure ;  in  other  words,  the  total  life  of  the  individual  is  but 
the  sum,  the  resultant,  of  the  lives  peculiar  to  each  anatom- 
ical element,  the  harmonious  union  of  the  simultaneous 
working  of  myriads  of  monads — the  monads  of  Leibnitz — 
gifted  with  life  in  different  degrees,  from  the  bony  cell,  al- 
most inert  and  mineral,  to  the  nerve-cell  in  which  a  strong 
and  fine  fire  burns  unceasingly. 

Every  one  of  these  living  corpuscles  is  a  complete  whole. 


ANIMAL  GRAFTS  AND  REGENERATIONS.  249 

having  at  bottom  the  same  forces,  the  same  tendencies,  the 
same  aspirations  as  the  more  or  less  complex  systems  to 
which  it  gives  birth  by  a  thousand  associations  and  vari- 
ous interweavings.  "Nature's  machines,"  says  Leibnitz, 
"  are  machines  throughout,  however  small  the  part  in  them 
one  may  take ;  or,  rather,  the  least  part  is  in  its  turn  an  infi- 
nite world,  and  one  even  that  expresses,  after  its  fashion,  all 
that  there  is  in  the  rest  of  the  universe.  This  surpasses 
our  conception,  yet  we  know  that  it  must  be  so,  and  all 
that  infinitely  infinite  variety  is  established  in  all  its  parts 
by  a  sublime  constructive  wisdom  more  than  infinite."  1 

But  what  is  in  itself  the  vital  force  peculiar  to  these  tiny 
machines,  the  force  that  we  observe  maintaining  itself  in 
the  several  parts  of  the  organism,  and  restoring  the  voids 
produced  in  the  tissues  ?  what  is  the  fundamental  character, 
the  mark  of  life  ?  It  is  nutrition,  that  is  to  say,  the  fact,  as 
plain  as  it  is  inexplicable,  of  the  continuous  molecular  re- 
newal of  organized  substance.  It  is  in  the  understanding 
of  the  phenomena  of  nutrition,  the  "  trophic  "  phenomena, 
that  the  whole  future  of  biology  lies.  We  shall  never  grasp 
the  secret  of  the  deepest  and  most  essential  vital  actions, 
until  we  shall  comprehend  the  equations  of  the  statics  and 
dynamics  of  those  fleeting  systems,  restlessly  passing 
through  cycles  of  change,  which  compose  the  anatomical 
elements. 

Whatever  future  the  knowledge  of  trophic  phenomena 
will  bring  with  it,  the  conception  of  life  won  for  us  by  nat- 
ural philosophy  opens  from  this  time  forward  a  new  path 
for  investigations.  It  suggests  the  thought  of  examining 
into  the  variations  of  physiological  determinism,  that  is,  of* 
studying  the  boundaries  within  which  life  moves,  or,  in  other 
words,  the  profound  modifications  of  which  organisms  are 
susceptible,  whether  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  specific 

1  "Letter  to  Bossuet,"  Unedited  Works,  published  by  Foucher  de 
Careil,  vol.  i.,  p.  276. 


250  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

type,  or  from  that  of  their  internal  modes  of  action.  The 
plan  of  such  an  undertaking  is  the  boldest  of  all  those  that 
imagination  and  human  knowledge  dream  of,  in  the  region 
of  scientific  activity.  Yet  Claude  Bernard,  whom  no  one 
suspects  of  unfaithfulness  to  the  method  of  experiment, 
does  not  hesitate  to  regard  it  as  allowable.  He  is  convinced 
that,  by  acting  on  the  phenomena  of  evolution,  we  might  be 
able  to  alter  the  configuration  and  to  transform  the  arrange- 
ments of  the  organs.  "  Observation  tells  us,"  he  says, "  that 
by  cosmic  influences,  and  especially  by  means  that  modify 
nutrition,  we  act  upon  organisms  in  various  ways,  and  we 
create  individual  varieties  possessing  special  properties,  and 
making,  in  some  sort,  new  beings.  .  .  .  There  is  no  reason 
why  these  modifying  agencies,  working  on  the  living  organ- 
ism under  certain  conditions,  may  not  produce  changes  such 
as  would  create  new  species  :  for  we  must  conceive  of  spe- 
cies as  being  in  themselves  the  result  of  persistence  for  an 
indefinite  time  in  their  same  conditions  of  being  and  of  nu- 
trition, in  consequence  of  an  earlier  organic  tendency  which 
was  communicated  to  them  by  their  ancestors.  By  modify- 
ing the  internal  media  of  nutrition  and  evolution,  by  taking 
hold  of  organized  matter  in  some  sort  at  its  springing  state, 
we  may  hope  to  change  its  course  of  evolution,  and  conse- 
quently its  final  organic  expression."  1 

These  remarks  of  the  famous  physiologist,  to  which,  per- 
haps enough  attention  has  not  been  given,  are,  however,  in 
the  highest  degree  worthy  of  attracting  notice  from  those 
savants  engaged  in  the  problem  of  the  transformation  of 
species.  Certainly  Darwinism  is  something  more  than  a 
bold  hypothesis.  The  partisans  of  his  teaching  assert  that 
living  species  have  been  in  former  times  transformed,  but 
thus  far  they  have  produced  no  instance  of  such  a  transfor- 
mation taking  place  in  the  past,  and  the  doubt  is  allowable 
whether  they  will  ever  be  able  to  give  retrospective  proofs 

1  "  Report  on  the  Progress  of  Physiology,"  pp.  3  and  113. 


ANIMAL   GRAFTS  AND   REGENERATIONS.  251 

of  it.  The  fact  is,  that  species  heretofore  have  been  sub- 
jected only  to  the  action  of  Nature's  spontaneous  influences5 
and  of  the  arts  of  zootechny  ;  but  that  which  forces  of  this 
kind  were  powerless  to  effect  yesterday  might  very  well  be 
accomplished  to-morrow  by  the  powers  which  the  physiolo- 
gist now  has  at  his  disposal.  By  directing  action  to  the 
eggs,  as  Claude  Bernard  suggests,  that  is,  to  the  living 
germs,  we  gain  a  far  more  powerful  and  solid  grasp  on  the 
remote  plans  of  life.  The  embryo,  that  faint  and  indefinite 
sketch  of  the  future  being,  that  microcosm  in  which  the 
silent  forces  of  vitality  slowly  possess  themselves  of  a  soft 
pulp,  sensitive  to  the  slightest  disturbances,  is  not  forced 
to  unfold  itself  in  accordance  with  any  unbending  law  : 
Robin  has  demonstrated  this.1  It  might  then  be  possible 
to  occasion,  in  the  embryo  of  an  animal,  modifications  com- 
patible with  life,  to  maintain  these  in  the  animal  once  formed, 
to  repeat  and  multiply  them  gradually  upon  the  products 
of  following  generations,  so  as  to  fix  them  definitely  by 
means  of  heredity.  Some  experiments  made  in  this  direc- 
tion, among  others  those  of  Dareste,  Brown  -  S6quard, 
Tr£cul,  etc.,  are  highly  promising;  but  the  subject,  we 
easily  see,  requires  the  diligent  cooperative  labor  of  many 
lives  of  men.  It  is  in  this  way  that  the  philosopher  will  be 
able  to  disturb  the  mechanism  of  things,  and  invert  the 
course  of  natural  transmutations.  He  will  impose  his  own 
will  on  the  forces  of  the  universe.  Whenever  he  is  shat- 
tered by  them,  they  know  nothing  of  it ;  when  he  subdues 
them,  it  is  with  absolute  knowledge  of  what  he  is  doing. 

These  corpuscles  themselves,  these  ultimate  monads  in 
which  life  dwells,  may  we  not  regard  them  in  their  turn  as 
being  susceptible  to  the  action  of  inward  modifications,  and 
capable  of  displaying  new  properties  ?  It  is  very  interest- 
ing to  remark  that  the  same  anatomical  element  shows 

1  See  his  remarkable  work  on  the  "Appropriation  of  Organic  Parts," 
1869. 


252  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

the  same  composition  in  all  living  species,  at  the  lowest 
degrees  as  well  as  at  the  heights  of  the  zoological  scale ; 
that  is  to  say,  that  living  molecules,  whatever  be  the  varie- 
ty of  the  different  systems  they  form  by  association,  are 
at  bottom  always  the  same.  On  what  do  this  unity  and 
constancy  of  composition  in  the  elements  out  of  which  or- 
ganic tissues  are  woven,  depend  ?  On  the  fact  that  they 
all  live  in  the  same  medium,  and  all  positively  absorb  ex- 
actly the  same  nutritive  materials.  We  might  believe 
that  the  organization  exerts  an  act  of  choice  among  the 
mass  of  the  bodies  that  surround  it,  that  it  has  a  particular 
affinity  for  certain  principles,  and  a  repugnance  to  assimilat- 
ing others.  Very  certainly,  some  substances,  a  very  small 
number  of  them,  are  absolutely  incompatible  with  life,  at 
least  such  as  we  conceive  it ;  but  this  does  not  prove  that 
organisms  are  endowed  with  the  power  to  exert  distinct 
selection  among  the"  total  chemical  ingredients  of  the  air, 
earth,  and  water.  The  first  germs,  and  the  animals  *born 
of  them,  took  naturally  and  spontaneously  what  they  found 
around  them,  and  grew  by  degrees  accustomed  to  it.  The 
clay  out  of  which  a  mysterious  hand  has  fashioned  them  is 
a  complicated  combination  of  every  thing  that  exists  in  the 
medium  in  which  they  float.  That  which  was  chance  in 
their  original  constitution  became  the  law  of  their  ultimate 
constitution.  Those  immediate  principles,  thus  more  or  less 
readily  assimilated  during  the  rudimentary  periods,  became 
adapted,  under  the  sway  of  heredity,  to  conditions  most 
favorable  to  life ;  harmony  gradually  arose  between  matter 
and  form ;  and  the  nature  of  the  functions  followed  upon 
that  of  the  organs.  At  least  nothing  authorizes  us  to  as- 
sert the  contrary,  and  every  thing  leads  to  the  belief  that, 
if  the  materials  of  the  earthly  medium  had  been  otherwise 
proportioned,  the  composition  of  living  organs  would  not 
be  the  same  that  we  know.  We  thus  see  that  the  ques- 
tion is  no  other  than  a  completely  rational  one,  whether  we 


ANIMAL   GRAFTS  AND  REGENERATIONS.  253 

might  not  undertake  to  modify  directly  the  existing  com- 
position of  anatomical  elements. 

This  latter  conception,  which  sets  the  bounds  of  physi- 
ological determinism  at  a  far  greater  distance  than  the 
former  does,  is  also  capable  of  verification  by  experiments. 
Just  as  we  act  upon  phenomena  of  evolution,  we  may,  by 
processes  of  methodical  and  persistent  boldness,  disturb 
the  order  of  the  operations  of  nutrition.  The  method  we 
have  followed  in  our  own  researches  on  this  subject  con- 
sists in  suppressing  certain  essential  principles  of  nutrition, 
and  substituting  for  them  new  immediate  principles,  more 
or  less  similar.  But  the  immediate  principles  that  are  nu- 
tritious are  found  mingled  with  the  substances  of  food  in 
the  conditions  most  favorable  to  assimilation.  The  mineral 
salts  in  them  are  intimately  combined  with  azote  matters. 
In  order,  then,  to  replace  these  mineral  salts  of  common 
food  with  others,  phosphate  of  lime,  for  instance,  with  phos- 
phates of  a  different  kind,  it  is  necessary  not  merely  to  dis- 
engage the  food  as  much  as  possible  from  the  salts  that  we 
wish  to  reject,  but  also  to  associate  with  it  in  the  closest 
manner  the  new  salts  which  we  intend  to  fix  in  the  system ; 
that  is  to  say,  we  must  introduce  them  into  it  under  the 
form  fittest  for  assimilation,  and  most  capable  of  overcom 
ing  the  natural  resistance  of  the  organism.  It  is  also  clear 
that  it  is  best  to  experiment  on  young  animals,  in  which 
the  action  of  assimilation  is  most  intense.  Under  such 
conditions,  and  by  such  processes,  we  reach  the  end  of 
modifying  the  order  and  kind  of  the  immediate  principles 
in  organized  substance.  Personal  experiments  permit  us 
at  least  to  assert  this,  as  far  as  it  regards  the  bony  tissue, 
and  thus  far  we  have  seen  nothing  that  compels  us  to  doubt 
our  power  of  producing  at  length,  by  gradual  transforma- 
tions, following  upon  certain  contrivances  of  nutrition,  or- 
ganisms of  a  new  and  harmonious  equilibrium,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  system  of  immediate  principles.  In 


254  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

any  case,  investigations  of  this  kind  have  a  very  great  in- 
terest. They  give  us  the  means  of  determining  the  rela- 
tions between  the  molecular  weights  of  immediate  princi- 
ples, and  their  nutritive  coefficients.  On  the  other  hand, 
by  introducing  at  a  given  time  a  certain  assimilable  prin- 
ciple into  the  organism,  and  marking  the  time  that  elapses 
between  the  moment  of  its  entrance  and  that  of  its  issue, 
we  have  a  process  for  measuring  the  speed  of  nutritive 
movement.1 

We  do  not  dwell  any  longer  on  these  experiments.  It 
is  enough  for  us  to  have  traced  succinctly  their  general 
direction  in  agreement  with  the  movement  going  on  in  the 
rest  of  physiology.  No  doubt,  such  labors  are  tedious  and 
difficult.  Besides  knowledge  and  patience,  we  need,  to 
attack  them,  faith  and  imagination ;  but  the  labors  of  the 
present  can  only  be  fruitful  on  the  condition  of  a  clear  vi- 
sion of  ideal  truth,  that  glorious  star  in  which  the  philoso- 
pher deserving  that  name  will  never  cease  with  passionate 
striving  to  read  the  destinies  of  the  spirit. 

1  See  two  memoirs  published  by  me  on  this  subject  ("  Comptes  ren- 
dus  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences,"  1870,  vol.  Ixxi.,  p.  372,  and  1873,  vol. 
Ixxvi.,  p.  352). 


FERMENTS,  FERMENTATIONS,  AND  LIFE. 

UNTIL  very  lately,  all  fermentations  were  supposed  to 
be  produced  by  the  spontaneous  decomposition  of  organic 
matter  within  a  fermentable  liquid.  It  was  said  that  on 
contact  with  air  this  organic  matter  undergoes  a  special 
change  which  gives  it  the  character  of  leaven,  and  this  was 
regarded  as  an  agent  having  the  power  of  spreading  decom- 
posing movement.  It  is  true,  brewer's  yeast  had  long  been 
well  known ;  the  facts  of  its  cellular  composition  and  its 
organization  were  familiar ;  but  no  relation  was  recognized 
between  this  organized  condition  and  those  phenomena  of 
fermentation  produced  by  yeast  in  saccharine  liquids,  such 
as  grape-juice  or  the  wort  of  ale.  In  the  first  few  years  of 
this  century  Turpin,  and  afterward  Cagniard-Latour,  at- 
tempted in  vain  to  prove  that  such  a  relation  existed ;  it 
was  always  denied  that  any  thing  else  could  be  observed 
in  alcoholic  fermentation  than  an  operation  resembling  all 
those  slow  decompositions  that  were  classed  among  fer- 
mentations. We  have  admitted,  in  our  time,  that  alcoholic 
fermentation,  instead  of  being  an  exception,  is  on  the  con- 
trary the  very  type  of  the  phenomena  we  are  treating  of ; 
that  the  yeast-cells,  far  from  being  unimportant,  take  an 
essential  part  in  it,  and  that  in  all  fermentations  whatever 
there  occur  low  organizations,  microscopic  corpuscles,  more 
or  less  analogous  to  those  of  yeast.  At  least  this  is  the 
first  result  of  investigations  carried  on  in  the  past  fifteen 


256  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

years  by  several  men  of  science,  among  whom  in  the  first 
rank  Pasteur  is  to  be  cited. 

Pasteur  began  the  course  of  his  labors  in  1858,  by  the 
study  of  alcoholic  fermentation.  He  placed  it  beyond  a 
doubt  that,  in  the  case  of  grape-juice  or  beer-wort,  as  in 
that  of  any  other  saccharine  liquid  exposed  to  the  air,  the 
more  or  less  rapid  production  of  alcohol  is  always  con- 
nected with  the  production  of  a  microscopic  fungus,  consist- 
ing of  rounded  globules,  a  few  thousandths  of  a  millimetre 
in  diameter.  These  globules,  known  under  the  name  of 
brewer's  yeast,  multiply  in  the  fermenting  liquid  at  the 
expense  of  the  organic  matters  it  contains,  and,  by  the  ex- 
changes of  growth  they  give  rise  to,  produce  decomposi- 
tion of  the  sugar  into  alcohol  and  carbonic,  succinic,  and 
glyceric  acids.  These  are  the  four  invariable  products  of 
alcoholic  fermentation.  Sugar  is  the  food  of  the  yeast-fun- 
gus; these  products  are  its  excretions.  The  laws  of  the 
inner  mechanism  that  elaborates  them  are  yet  unknown. 
But  every  thing  leads  us  to  believe  that  the  yeast-cells 
secrete  a  substance  more  or  less  resembling  those  that 
work  out  the  phenomena  of  digestion  in  the  higher  animals. 
Alcoholic  fermentation  would  thus  be  a  kind  of  digestion  of 
sugar  within  the  globule. 

Dumas,  who  signalized  his  entrance  upon  the  career  of 
studies  in  natural  science  half  a  century  ago,  by  memo- 
rable discoveries  in  microscopic  physiology,  has  lately  re- 
turned to  researches  of  the  same  kind,  precisely,  in  respect 
to  fermentations.  In  Pasteur's  laboratory  at  the  Normal 
School  he  has  taken  up  investigations  on  this  subject,  the 
results  of  which,  quite  lately  published,  show  that  the  dis- 
tinguished savant  in  question  has  lost  neither  his  cautious 
diligence  in  experimental  processes,  nor  his  lucid  concep- 
tion in  the*  grasp  of  principles.  He  has  attempted,  among 
other  things,  to  determine  the  decomposing  force,  the 
amount  of  activity,  possessed  by  eacli  cell  of  the  alcoholic 


FERMENTS,  FERMENTATIONS,  AND  LIFE.  257 

ferment.  To  ascertain  this,  he  measured  the  quantity  of 
sugar  decomposed  in  a  given  time  by  a  fixed  weight  of  yeast, 
and  he  found  —  after  first  establishing  that  a  cubic  mil- 
limetre of  yeast  contains  about  2,772,000  cells — that  the 
power  of  a  million  of  cells  represents  the  force  capable  of 
decomposing  four  grains  of  sugar  in  an  hour.  If  we  at- 
tempted according  to  this  estimate  to  express  in  figures  the 
number  of  cells  employed  in  producing  the  wine,  beer,  and 
cider,  consumed  every  year,  as  Dumas  says,  even  astrono- 
mers would  shrink  from  the  task. 

This  active  property  of  decomposing  sugar,  and  forming 
alcohol  in  consequence,  does  not  belong  to  the  cells  of 
brewer's  yeast  exclusively.  Several  chemical  agents  possess 
the  same  power,  and  certain  vegetable  cells  also  are  adapted 
to  use  it.  When  fruits  are  placed  in  a  medium  filled  with 
oxygen,  they  absorb  this  gas,  and  occasion  the  release  of 
carbonic  acid ;  if,  on  the  contrary,  they  are  left  in  carbonic 
acid  or  any  other  inert  gas,  they  effect  the  production  of 
alcohol.  The  fruits  remain  firm  and  hard,  without  suffer- 
ing any  external  change,  but  the  sugar  they  contain  is 
transformed  in  part  into  alcohol.  How  is  this  phenomenon 
to  be  explained  ?  In  common  air,  the  cell  of  the  fruit  is  fed 
by  oxygen ;  if  this  gas  is  withheld,  it  is  forced  to  borrow  the 
materials  of  nutrition  from  the  fluids  that  moisten  it,  that 
is,  from  the  saccharine  juice,  and  then  the  latter  is  decom- 
posed. Pasteur  has  noted  that  a  similar  alcoholic  fermen- 
tation takes  place  in  other  vegetable  organs,  in  leaves,  for 
instance,  and  in  every  case  he  has  proved  that  the  phenom- 
enon is  due  to  the  cells  of  the  vegetables  alone,  and  not 
to  yeast-globules.  Far  from  throwing  any  doubt  on  the 
physiological  doctrine  of  fermentation,  these  singular  facts 
agree  in  lending  it  support,  by  giving  it  deeper  and  more 
general  application. 

We  have  seen  that  the  fermentation  of  sugar  yields 
alcohol.     The  latter,  brought  in  contact  with  certain  porous 
12 


258  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

substances,  as,  for  instance,  platinum  sponge,  can  absorb 
the  oxygen  of  the  air  and  transform  itself,  by  oxidation, 
into  acetic  acid.  A  phenomenon  of  this  kind  occurs  in 
wine  when  it  sours,  the  alcohol  contained  in  it  being 
changed  into  acetic  acid ;  only,  the  agent  in  the  trans- 
formation is  in  this  case  a  microscopic  plant,  made  up  of 
little  elongated  globules,  some  thousandths  of  a  millimetre 
in  diameter.  These  globules,  these  mycoderms,  develop  on 
the  surface  of  wine  exposed  to  the  air,  and  form  a  scum 
which  plays  the  part  of  storing  away  a  certain  stock  of 
oxygen,  afterward  used  to  produce  acetification  in  the 
liquid.  This  scum,  which  is  called  mother  of  vinegar,  only 
acts  while  in  communication  with  the  air.  As  soon  as  it  is 
below  the  surface,  it  loses  its  efficacy,  and  the  production 
of  acetic  acid  is  checked.  Thus  the  development  of  vine- 
gar in  the  acetic  fermentation  is  reduced  to  an  oxidation 
of  alcohol,  in  which  microscopic  cells  are  the  vehicles  of  the 
oxygen. 

When  milk  turns  and  sours,  that  phenomenon  also  is 
due  to  the  formation  of  an  acid — lactic  acid.  This  sub- 
stance proceeds  from  the  decomposition  of  sugar  contained 
in  the  milk,  and  this  decomposition,  again,  is  a  fermenta- 
tion. The  microscopic  being  that  effects  it  assumes  several 
forms ;  sometimes  it  is  made  up  of  cells  presenting  much 
resemblance  to  the  cells  of  yeast,  sometimes  it  consists  of 
straight  and  exceedingly  fine  rods.  Milk  also  contains 
casein,  which  is  the  substance  that  composes  cheese,  and, 
when  the  fermentation  of  the  sugar  in  milk  is  over,  that  of 
the  casein  begins  ;  after  lactic  acid,  butyric  acid  is  produced. 
Examining  with  a  microscope  the  casein  transforming  into 
butyric  acid,  we  observe  in  it  little  rods,  two  thousandths 
of  a  millimetre  in  diameter,  and  of  a  length  from  two 
to  five  times  as  great ;  this  is  the  butyric  ferment,  which, 
concurrently  with  other  microscopic  vegetable  growths, 
determines  in  various  cheeses  the  slow  production  of 


FERMENTS,  FERMENTATIONS,  AND  LIFE.  359 

butyric  acid  and  several  analogous  acids,  equally  strong 
in  smell.  To  cite  a  last  illustration,  the  decomposition 
of  urine,  giving  rise  to  an  abundant  release  of  ammoniacal 
gases,  is  also  the  result  of  a  fermentation ;  under  the  action 
of  cells  smaller  than  those  of  brewer's  yeast,  the  contained 
urea  changes  to  carbonate  of  ammonia,  rendering  the  liquid 
highly  alkaline  and  strongly  odorous.  In  short,  the  fermen- 
tations we  have  just  described,  and  many  others  of  the 
same  kind,  participate  in  the  nutrition  and  development  of 
microscopic  beings,  of  an  average  size  not  exceeding  some 
thousandths  of  a  millimetre,  and  presenting  the  form  some- 
times of  spheroidal  or  of  egg-shaped  globules  (as  myco- 
derms,  torulaceas),  sometimes  of  straight,  bent,  or  curving 
rods  (as  vibrios  and  bacteria).  These  diminutive  beings 
engender  the  ferment  within  the  fermenting  liquid  itself,  in 
the  degree  and  rate  of  their  propagation  in  it. 

There  is  another  class  of  fermentations  in  which  the  im- 
mediate presence  of  definitely-shaped  corpuscles  cannot  be 
traced.  Thus  diastasic  fermentation  consists  in  the  trans- 
formation of  starch  into  sugar  under  the  action  of  a  form- 
less yellowish  matter,  called  "  diastase."  Amygdalic  fer- 
mentation is  that  in  which  amygdaline  becomes  the  essence 
of  bitter-almonds,  by  the  action  of  a  like  ferment,  known 
as  "  synaptase."  The  former  takes  place  in  the  vegetable 
embryo  when  the  amylaceous  matter  of  the  seed  is  con- 
verted into  a  soluble  sugar,  which  permeates  the  growing 
tissues  of  the  plant.  The  latter  occurs  when  bitter-almonds 
are  crushed  in  water ;  on  contact  with  the  liquid,  the  mixt- 
ure of  these  odorless  kernels  takes  the  characteristic  smell 
of  the  essence  of  bitter-almonds,  which  results  from  the 
fermentation  of  amygdaline.  We  regard  as  fermentations, 
moreover,  a  certain  number  of  similar  phenomena  which  can 
be  produced  with  the  implements  of  a  laboratory,  and  which 
are  constantly  taking  place  in  living  organisms,  of  which  the 
cause  is  a  zymotic  substance.  There  exists,  for  instance,  in 


260  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

the  saliva  a  principle  called  ptyaline,  which,  like  diastase, 
converts  amylaceous  matter  into  sugar.  The  gastric  juice 
contains  another  principle,  pepsin,  which  has  the  effect  of 
liquefying  albuminous  substances,  so  that  they  may  be  pre- 
pared for  absorption.  The  pancreatic  fluid  contains  another 
principle  which  acts  in  a  similar  way.  Digestion  is  thus  re- 
duced to  a  series  of  fermentations,  as  the  ancient  chemists 
had  rightly  conjectured  in  regard  to  it.  These  different 
phenomena,  as  well  as  those  in  which  organisms  take  part, 
have  the  two  general  characteristics  of  fermentation ;  they 
occur  only  within  certain  limits  of  temperature,  and  the 
weight  of  the  fermentable  matter  is  always  much  greater 
than  that  of  the  ferment  which  suffices  to  decompose  it. 

To  conclude,  fermentations  occasioned  in  certain  media, 
by  the  act  of  development  and  nutrition  of  ascertained 
microscopic  animal  or  vegetable  existences,  present  a  group 
of  well-defined  characteristics.  They  follow  obediently  all 
the  variations  that  may  occur  in  the  physiological  activity 
of  the  microscopic  beings  contained  in  the  liquid.  This 
does  not  go  into  fermentation  all  at  once ;  it  delays  more 
or  less,  and  molecular  movement  makes  itself  perceptible 
in  it  by  degrees.  The  phenomenon  is  one  of  evolvement. 
This  appears  to  be  the  characteristic  of  alcoholic,  lactic, 
acetic,  butyric,  glyceric,  and  putrid  fermentations — all  of 
those,  in  short,  which  Pasteur  has  studied  with  so  convin- 
cing accuracy.  Is  it  the  same  with  the  conversion  of  amyla- 
ceous substances  into  sugar,  under  the  influence  of  diastase 
or  ptyaline,  with  the  dissolving  of  proteic  substances  by 
pepsin,  with  the  change  of  amygdaline  into  the  essence  of 
bitter-almonds,  by  contact  with  synaptase?  Evidently 
not.  These  phenomena  present  another  aspect ;  they  show 
no  stages  of  evolvement.  Doubtless  they  require  a  certain 
time  for  their  completion ;  but  they  take  place  all  at  once, 
and  without  any  relation  to  the  surrounding  air. 

These  differences  between  the  two  kinds  of  fermenta- 


FERMENTS,  FERMENTATIONS,  AND  LIFE.  261 

tion  clearly  depend  on  this :  that,  in  the  former,  the  phe- 
nomenon is  subjected  to  the  conditions  and  vital  progress 
of  those  organized  corpuscles  which  elaborate  the  ferment 
within  the  substance  of  the  fermentable  liquids,  while,  in 
the  latter,  the  phenomenon  is  brought  about  by  a  ferment 
already  formed  and  prepared.  But  this  latter  ferment  is  no 
less  of  organic  origin ;  it,  too,  arises  from  living  beings, 
animal  or  vegetable.  Whether  it  emanates,  like  diastase, 
from  the  young  cells  of  the  seed,  or  results,  like  pepsin, 
from  work  done  in  the  digestive  apparatus,  it  is  the  labor 
of  life,  just  as  much  as  if  it  had  been  completed  by  globules 
of  yeast  or  bundles  of  bacteria.  Thus  the  efficient  sources 
of  all  fermentations  are  the  same.  All  ferments  are  at  bot- 
tom alike,  whether  procured  "directly  for  the  fermentable 
liquid  by  microscopic  bodies  inhabiting  it,  or  emanating 
from  corpuscles  that  inhabit  elsewhere.  The  true  doctrine 
of  fermentations  consists  in  this  point. 

Henceforth,  then,  we  may  consider  ferments  as  products 
of  a  fecundation  taking  place  in  cells,  as  secretions  elabo- 
rated by  those  myriads  of  infinitely  little  corpuscles,  seme 
crowded,  squeezed,  condensed,  into  the  palpable  organs  of 
animals  and  plants — others  free  and  moving,  disseminated, 
as  we  shall  see,  into  vast,  intangible  space.  The  energy 
which  distinguishes  these  microscopic  animal  and  vegeta- 
ble growths  also  belongs  to  the  microscopic  elements  mak- 
ing up  the  living  tissues  in  the  higher  animals.  We  must 
give  to  this  property,  hitherto  considered  as  special,  the 
high  dignity  of  a  fundamental  and  universal  attribute  of 
organized  cells.  We  must  detect,  in  the  most  complex 
conversions  and  processes  of  nutrition  in  superior  beings, 
the  same  untiring  and  primitive  force  that  marks  the  sub- 
tile action  of  invisible  and  insignificant  monads. 

No  doubt,  the  corpuscles  of  different  species — to  which, 
in  the  last  analysis,  we  reduce  animals  and  plants  of  every 
kind  and  degree — are  not  identical.  Each  species  has  its 


262  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

own  structure,  its  specific  energy,  its  mode  of  nutrition,  its 
fixed  secretions — characteristics,  moreover,  which  vary  with 
circumstances  and  media.  Yet  we  can  point  out  more  than 
one  interesting  similarity  between  certain  ones  of  these 
species,  which  seem  to  discharge  quite  distinct  functions, 
and  hold  very  unlike  stations,  in  the  vast  harmony  of  vital 
monads.  The  cells  of  fruits,  when  placed  in  certain  condi- 
tions, behave,  as  has  been  seen,  like  the  cells  of  brewer's 
yeast ;  they  both  decompose  sugar  and  yield  alcohol.  We 
may  trace  resemblances  not  less  close,  as  Blondeau  and 
Pasteur  have  done,  between  acetic  mycoderms  and  blood- 
globules.  Both  alike  serve  as  carriers  of  oxygen — the  first 
for  the  slow  combustion  of  alcohol ;  the  last,  for  the  slow 
combustion  of  the  albuminoid  matters  in  animal  tissues. 
It  is  even  likely  that  there  is  a  principle  in  mycoderms 
similar  to  hemoglobine  in  the  blood-globule,  and  provided 
with  a  special  affinity  for  oxygen.  However  this  may  be, 
comparisons  of  this  kind  open  a  new  path  for  physiology. 
As  that  science  is  definitely  summed  up  in  the  explanation 
of  existences  and  processes  in  the  microscopic  elements  of 
organs,  it  is  plain  that  nothing  can  be  more  useful  to  it 
than  the  study  of  these  one-celled  organisms  in  which  the 
phenomena  are  extremely  simple,  and  life  is  reduced,  in  a 
manner,  to  its  primitive  factors.  It  becomes  more  and 
more  evident  that  progress  in  the  comprehension  of  the 
superior  animals  is  bound,  with  the  very  closest  ties,  to  ad- 
vance in  the  comprehension  of  the  mechanism  of  nutrition 
in  the  rudimentary  units  of  life,  in  the  smallest  beings  that 
it  is  given  us  to  study, 

n. 

Now,  whence  come  those  organized  microscopic  corpus- 
cles to  which,  as  we  have  seen,  very  many  of  the  alterations 
of  organic  matter  must  be  attributed  ?  Upon  this  great 
problem,  opinions  at  this  day  are  still  very  contradictory. 


FERMENTS,  FERMENTATIONS,  AND  LIFE.  £63 

Neither  patient  observations,  nor  minute  experiments,  nor 
profound  reasonings,  have  been  wanting ;  yet  some  still  be- 
lieve that  these  little  bodies  grow,  by  spontaneous  genera- 
tion, within  fermentable  liquids,  while  others  assert,  and 
profess  to  have  proved,  that  they  come  from  germs  con- 
tained in  the  air.  Certainly,  the  former  opinion  involves 
nothing  contradictory  nor  impossible.  Those  who  reject 
it  by  begging  the  question,  in  the  name  of  some  unknown, 
mystical  doctrine  of  life,  do  not  even  deserve  to  be  listened 
to  in  the  investigation.  It  might  possibly  have  occurred 
that  organized  beings  should  be  produced,  complete  at  all 
points,  in  a  medium  deprived  of  organization ;  yet  experi- 
ment proves  that  this  does  not  occur.  We  must,  then,  ac- 
cept the  other  opinion — the  panspermist  doctrine — that  is  to 
say,  we  must  concede  that  the  germs  of  microscopic  animals 
and  vegetables,  with  which  so  many  fermentations  and 
putrefactions  are  connected,  exist  in  the  air.  This  is  one 
of  the  conclusions,  and  perhaps  the  most  legitimate  and 
most  fertile  one,  of  Pasteur's  striking  studies. 

He  deserves  the  glory  of  it  precisely  because  he  has  not 
priority  in  it.  In  truth,  the  originator  of  this  idea  only 
had,  and  could  only  have,  a  dim  intuition  of  it.  He  could 
measure  neither  its  importance  nor  its  consequences.  The 
importance  and  the  results  of  a  great  idea,  whatever  it  may 
be,  only  become  apparent  when,  after  undergoing  a  cer- 
tain evolution,  it  has  gained  the  precision,  certitude,  and 
establishment,  that  nothing  but  long  experience  can  confer 
upon  it.  A  conception  must  have  acquired  some  age  in 
science  to  wear  a  fixed  authority,  and  bestow  fame  on  those 
who  comprehend,  and  cause  to  be  comprehended,  all  its 
grandeur  and  power.  The  circulation  of  the  blood  had 
long  been  seen  by  glimpses,  in  the  schools  of  physiology, 
when  Harvey  gave  it  complete  and  vigorous  demonstration. 
Gravitation  had  long  invited  research,  and  suggested  pre- 
sentiment, before  Newton  drew  its  perfect  system.  So, 


264  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

too,  the  panspermist  theory,  neglected  and  ignored  since 
the  time  of  its  earliest  authors — among  whom  Astier,  in 
1813,  deserves  particular  mention — has  only  been  definitely 
established  in  our  time,  through  the  experiments  made  by 
Pasteur.  That  famous  chemist  has  improved  a  vague 
sketch  into  a  finished  and  masterly  drawing.  These  experi- 
ments, repeated  and  varied  in  a  thousand  ways,  all  refer  to 
the  investigation,  by  comparison,  of  what  takes  place  in  the 
same  fermentable  liquid,  under  the  different  conditions  of 
exposure  to  common  air,  filled  with  dust,  and  of  con- 
tact with  purified  air.  For  instance,  Pasteur  puts  a  cer- 
tain quantity  of  a  liquid,  that  readily  undergoes  change, 
into  glass  balls  through  which  a  current  of  air  may  be 
made  to  pass.  Fermentation  and  the  development  of  small 
organisms  take  place  very  soon  in  the  balls  through  which 
common  air  circulates ;  but,  if  the  air,  before  entering  them, 
passes  through  a  plug  of  cotton,  no  change  in  the  liquid  is 
observed.  When  the  volume  of  air,  thus  filtered  through 
cotton,  is  considerable,  the  plug  is  so  filled  with  dust  as 
to  turn  black.  Now,  this  dust,  in  addition  to  a  quantity 
of  mineral  particles,  and  fluff  of  many  kinds,  contains  spores 
and  germs  of  fermenting  substance,  as  is  proved  by  the 
fact  that  the  smallest  quantity  of  it,  sprinkled  in  pure  liquid, 
will  produce  fermentation  in  it.  An  experiment  of  another 
kind  is  this :  Pasteur,  by  an  ingenious  arrangement,  inserts 
and  withdraws  from  a  glass  jar,  filled  with  pure  air,  the 
juice  from  the  inside  of  a  single  grape,  so  that,  during  the 
experiment,  the  juice  communicates  neither  with  the  surface 
of  the  grape  nor  with  the  atmospheric  air.  The  juice, 
thus  obtained,  shows  no  trace  of  fermentation,  remaining 
unchanged  as  long  as  the  jar  is  closed  ;  but  if  it  is  opened, 
or  if  its  contents  are  mixed  with  a  few  drops  of  water  in 
which  the  surface  of  the  grape  has  been  washed,  fermenta- 
tion is  set  up  in  it  at  once.  This  is  because  the  outside  of 
grapes  is  always  covered  with  yeast-germs,  even  when  the 


FERMENTS,  FERMENTATIONS,  AND  LIFE.  265 

bunches  have  been  subjected  to  constant  rains.  In  this 
case,  plainly,  fermentation  is  due  to  the  germs  suspended 
in  the  air,  or  deposited  on  the  surface  of  the  grapes  and 
stems.  Pasteur  draws  blood  from  an  animal's  veins  by  a 
similar  process,  and  introduces  it  into  a  glass  vessel  in  con- 
tact with  pure  air.  The  blood  continues  fresh  for  years. 
Pasteur  asserts  and  proves  by  experiment  that  grape-juice, 
milk,  blood,  and  all  liquids  that  most  readily  undergo  change 
in  ordinary  conditions,  are  incapable  of  fermentation  in  air 
which  is  pure,  that  is  to  say,  deprived  of  the  corpuscles  it 
contained.  They  remain,  when  so  placed,  for  an  indefinite 
time,  in  a  singularly  sound  state. 

Pasteur  had  made  still  another  set  of  experiments.  He 
had  obtained  development  of  fermentation  in  liquids  freed 
from  albuminoid  substances.  It  was  supposed,  before  his 
researches,  that  the  cells  remarked  in  the  fermentation  of 
grape-juice  proceed  from  the  conversion  of  the  albuminoid 
substances  which  this  fluid  contains  in  its  natural  state. 
Pasteur  prepares  a  solution  of  sugar,  tartrate  of  ammonia, 
and  some  other  salts,  and  sprinkles  a  few  yeast-globules  in 
it.  They  swell,  develop,  and  propagate  in  this  artificial 
medium  quite  as  well  as  in  the  grape-juice.  So  it  was  sup- 
posed that  in  the  acid  fermentation  of  milk  the  ferment  is  a 
product  of  the  conversion  of  casein.  Pasteur  proves  that 
supposition  to  be  unfounded,  by  artificially  producing  the 
lactic  ferment  in  a  compounded  liquid  containing  not  a 
trace  of  casein.  These  very  delicate  experiments  have  not 
only  increased  the  vogue  of  the  panspermic  theory,  but 
they  have  been  of  great  value  also  to  vegetable  physiology. 
'  Many  objections  have  been  raised  to  these  theories  on 
the  origin  of  ferments,  to  which  Pasteur  has  almost  always 
replied  by  unquestionable  facts  and  solid  reasonings,  though 
he  has  sometimes  done  himself  the  injustice  to  be  rough 
and  contemptuous  in  discussion  toward  his  opponents. 
Truth  is  strong  enough  to  indulge  charity  for  error.  The 


NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

gravest  of  these  objections,  it  must  be  said,  have  applied 
to  problems  which  do  not  concern  the  very  foundation  of 
the  dispute  between  the  panspermic  system  and  its  op- 
posite. For  instance,  Tr^cul,  the  skillful  and  noted  microg- 
rapher,  BSchamp,  and  others,  have  proved  that  Pasteur 
mistakes  with  regard  to  the  evolutions  and  transformations 
undergone  by  microscopic  beings  in  fermenting  media. 
Pasteur  has  certainly  made  more  than  one  mistake  on  this 
subject,  and  there  probably  does  exist  between  certain  fer- 
ment-corpuscles a  closer  relationship  than  is  supposed  at 
the  laboratory  of  the  Normal  School ;  but  that  does  not  in 
the  least  alter  the  fundamental  character  of  the  theory. 
Attention  is  also  called  to  the  fact  that  corpuscles  with  a 
determinate  structure  can  be  produced  complete,  without, 
germs,  in  some  liquids.  No  doubt,  this  is  true,  but  only 
on  condition  that  the  liquids  are  living  ones.  No  doubt,  the 
cambium  of  vegetables,  the  blastema  of  animals,  and  gen- 
erally all  protoplasmic  fluids,  are  fertile  hatching-fields  for 
the  spontaneous  development  of  the  cells  and  fibres  of  living 
tissues.  It  is  thus  that  the  first  elements  of  the  embryo 
show  themselves  in  the  animal  ovule.  And  in  this  respect 
the  labors  of  Robin,  Tre'cul,  Onimus,  Legros,  and  a  great 
number  of  other  observers,  are  decisive ;  but  life  is  the 
property  of  these  protoplasms ;  they  depend  upon  an  or- 
ganized system.  In  the  depths  of  the  organism,  and 
shielded  from  the  air,  they  toil  at  the  creation  of  micro- 
scopic corpuscles.  Place  them  in  contact  with  purified  air, 
in  Pasteur's  glass  globes,  and  then  they  would  be  barren. 

The  last  objection  Pasteur  has  to  meet  is,  that,  if  the 
germs  of  all  these  microscopic*  vegetable  and  animal  lives 
are  in  the  atmosphere,  they  should  be  discovered  and  rec- 
ognized there.  But,  in  examining  the  dust  of  the  air 
microscopically,  we  do  not  by  any  means  detect  all  the  rudi- 
ments of  that  infinitely  minute  flora  and  fauna  whose  exist- 
ence is  attested  by  the  fermentation  and  putrefactions  of 


FERMENTS,  FERMENTATIONS,  AND  LIFE.  267 

organic  matter.  Pasteur  has  thus  far  met  this  argument 
only  by  the  evidence  of  his  experiments  which  prove  that, 
in  contact  with  purified  air,  neither  fermentations  nor  putre- 
factions are  possible.  That  is  strictly  sufficient,  but  we  can 
go  further.  It  is  by  no  means  a  sure  conclusion  that  these 
germs  do  not  exist,  because  many  of  them  are  invisible 
under  the  lens.  To  begin  with,  we  do  note  with  certainty 
a  certain  number  of  species  in  atmospheric  dust.  It  is 
therefore  an  admissible  presumption  that,  if  the  remaining 
ones  elude  our  eyes  and  our  microscopes,  that  merely  proves 
them  to  be  smaller  than  the  observed  ones.  But,  perhaps, 
the  problem  ought  to  be  viewed  in  a  different  way.  We 
believe  that  these  visible  germs  are  the  exceptions,  that  is, 
that  they  are  beings  already  arrived  at  a  certain  degree  of 
development,  and  that,  in  reality,  all  true  germs  are  of 
dimensions  forever  beyond  the  reach  of  microscopic  obser- 
vation, even  conceiving  lenses  to  be  immensely  more  pow- 
erful than  they  now  are.  The  microscope  barely  brings 
within  our  range  of  vision  points  that  measure  at  least  a 
ten  thousandth  part  of  a  milli metre.  The  primitive  germs 
of  life  cannot  even  approach  the  hundred  thousandth  part 
of  a  millimetre.  Physics  and  metaphysics  both  assure  us 
that  we  must  here  give  up  the  hope  of  measuring  and 
estimating  things  according  to  the  powers  of  our  limited 
senses.  An  effort  is  needed  to  pursue  with  the  mind's  eye 
these  perpetually-dwindling  dimensions,  still  to  go  on 
though  the  imagination  fails  in  the  task,  and  to  realize  at 
last  how  far  removed  are  the  bounds  of  the  microcosm.  If 
the  faculty  of  reaching  out  beyond  the  limits  of  our  nature> 
which  is  one  of  the  noblest  prerogatives  of  our  intelligence, 
does  not  desert  us,  we  attain  to  the  idea  of  the  vital  monads 
of  Leibnitz,  the  organic  molecules  of  Buffon,  the  compre- 
hension of  existence  for  primal  organisms  diffused  through- 
out the  world  by  myriads  of  myriads,  and  the  conception 
of  the  infinitely  minute  within  the  infinitely  minute. 


268  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

Thus,  just  as  the  infinite  universe  through  which  the 
spheres  roll  is  filled  with  invisible  particles  of  a  subtile  mat- 
ter to  which  physicists  and  astronomers  give  the  name  of 
ether,  and  which  supplies  the  only  key  to  cosmic  phenom- 
ena, the*  finite  universe  in  which  organization  unfolds  it- 
self is  thronged  with  corpuscles  no  less  invisible,  forming 
what  the  illustrious  Ehrenberg  calls  the  milky-way  of  lower 
organisms,  and  no  less  essential  for  the  explanation  of  the 
processes  of  which  we  have  traced  the  general  course.  As 
there  is  an  ether  wanting  in  life,  so  there  is  an  ether  en- 
dowed with  life — a  vital  ether.  Both  are  above  denial; 
they  surpass  our  reason,  yet  reason  cannot  but  demand 
them.  They  elude  the  close  grasp  of  experiment,  yet  ex- 
periment does  not  permit  them  to  be  avoided ;  they  are 
unseen,  and  without  them  there  could  be  nothing  seen. 
The  mind  clings  to  them  with  the  stress  of  all  its  power 
to  embrace,  perhaps  because  it  feels  a  secret,  mysterious 
affinity  with  them,  perhaps  because  it  is  in  substance  of  the 
same  essence  with  them. 

III. 

Our  atmosphere,  then,  is  the  receptacle  for  myriads  of 
germs  of  microscopic  beings,  which  play  an  important  part 
in  the  organized  world.  Penetrating  agents  of  decay, 
baneful  toilers  for  disease,  they  lie  ever  in  wait  for  the 
chance  to  pierce  the  internal  machinery  of  animals  and 
plants,  and  create  slight  or  grave  disturbances  within  it. 
Life  often  resists  or  escapes  them,  but  nothing  can  contest 
with  them  its  deserted  vesture.  The  corpse  is  their  natural 
aliment,  and  death  their  chosen  laboratory.  There  these 
lowest  of  created  things  work  out  their  lofty  destiny  in  the 
eternal  drama  of  renewal  of  organic  existences. 

When  the  thin  pellicle  covering  sweet  fruits  is  torn  at 
any  point,  an  opening  is  made  for  atmospheric  germs.  Fer- 
menting cells  pierce  the  interior  of  the  fruit,  and  produce 


FERMENTS,  FERMENTATIONS,  AND  LIFE.  269 

within  it  fermentation  of  the  sugar,  that  is  to  say,  the 
formation  of  a  little  alcohol ;  and  this  in  its  turn  is  sus- 
ceptible of  the  passage  into  acetic  fermentation,  giving  the 
pulp  an  acid  taste.  At  last  the  pulp  itself  is  destroyed  by 
various  fungous  growths.  When  a  fruit  decays  and  takes 
a  more  or  less  unpleasant  flavor,  this  depends  on  the  in- 
tervention of  ferment-cells  of  atmospheric  origin,  and  on 
the  production  of  acid  or  alcoholic  substances.  An  able 
micrographist,  Engel,  who  has  lately  studied  these  phe- 
nomena minutely,  discovers  that  the  yeast-cells  which  thus 
produce  alcoholic  fermentation  in  the  juices  of  fruits  present 
some  slight  differences  in  various  fruits,  neither  do  they 
have  the  same  morphological  character  as  those  of  grape- 
must  or  beer-wort.  Varieties  occur  in  these  cases,  corre- 
sponding to  the  different  media  in  which  the  nutrition  of 
the  little  fungus  takes  place. 

The  microscopic  fungi  of  the  atmosphere  play  as  in- 
teresting a  part  in  the  alteration  of  wines.  These  grow 
acid,  change,  become  filmy  or  oily,  or  take  on  besides  a 
decided  bitterness.  All  these  sicknesses  depend  on  the 
development  of  different  little  plants  recognized  and  de- 
scribed by  Pasteur ;  and  this  scientist,  not  stopping  at  the 
solution  of  the  nature  of  these  disorders,  has  sought  the 
means  of  preventing  them.  Resting  on  some  former  ob- 
servations by  D'Appert,  he  conceived  the  idea  of  subject- 
ing wines  to  the  action  of  a  very  high  degree  of  heat,  so  as 
to  destroy  the  yeast-germs.  There  was  no  possibility  of 
doubt  as  to  the  destruction  of  these  germs  and  the  preven- 
tion of  any  further  change,  but  it  might  well  be  asked  wheth- 
er the  delicacy  and  bouquet  of  certain  wines  would  not 
be  endangered  by  the  effects  of  heating.  Long-continued 
experiments  prove  not  only  that  heating  is  an  excellent 
method  of  preventing  sickness  in  wines,  but  also  that,  in- 
stead of  impairing  their  exquisite  qualities,  it  ripens  and 
strengthens  them.  The  recorded  minutes  of  tastings  of- 


270  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

ficially  performed  during  the  past  year  by  several  members 
of  the  syndical  wine  commission,  at  the  suggestion  of  Pas- 
teur, contain  decisive  testimony  on  this  point.  Fine  Bur- 
gundy wines,  heated  in  bottle  seven  years  ago  to  temper- 
atures varying  between  131°  and  149°,  appeared,  at  the 
end  of  that  time,  superior  to  the  same  wines  not  so  treated. 
Persons  who  spoke  with  some  authority,  Pasteur  says,  de- 
clared that  heating  would  in  time  deprive  the  wine  of  its 
color.  The  contrary  is  the  case,  when  the  air  is  excluded 
during  the  process;  the  color  grows  livelier  by  heating. 
It  was  said  that  heating  would  in  time  alter  the  bouquet  of 
fine  wines,  giving  them  dryness  and  too  great  age.  On 
the  contrary,  the  bouquet  seems  to  be  heightened  with  the 
lapse  of  time,  more  positively  than  with  wines  not  heated. 
In  the  case  of  chambertin  and  volnay,  particularly,  the 
tasters  noticed  this  fact.  Pasteur  was  led  t>y  these  studies 
to  investigate  the  cause  of  the  aging  of  wines,  and  he  dis- 
covered that  the  phenomenon  was  due  to  slow  oxidation. 
Wine  kept  in  glass  tubes  completely  filled  and  closely 
sealed  does  not  age.  By  increasing  and  regulating  the 
aeration  of  wine,  and  particularly  combining  it  with  heat- 
ing, he  succeeded  in  manufacturing  in  one  month  excellent 
old  wine.  In  short,  oxygen  and  heat,  acting  on  wine  in 
certain  proportions,  promote  instead  of  hindering  the  devel- 
opment of  those  volatile  principles  to  which  the  liquid  owes 
its  perfume  and  part  of  its  flavor ;  but  this  discovery  is  addi- 
tional to  those  he  was  in  search  of.  What  Pasteur  did  chief- 
ly look  for  and  did  find,  in  giving  exact  and  methodical  rules 
for  heating  wines,  is  a  process,  applicable  on  a  great  scale, 
for  preventing  the  diseases  from  which  the  common  vineyard 
products  so  often  suffer,  and  that  fortunate  application  is  a 
result  from  his  researches  on  fermentation  generally.  In 
the  same  way,  in  consequence  of  the  examinations  he  under- 
took as  to  the  share  of  microscopic  organisms  in  the  diseases 
of  silk-worms,  he  was  led  to  prescribe  a  practical  way  of 


FERMENTS,  FERMENTATIONS,  AND   LIFE. 

hindering  the  development  of  these  organisms,  and  thus 
preventing  the  malady. 

When  we  inject  into  the  subcutaneous  cellular  tissue  of 
a  living  animal  a  putrefied  or  septic  liquid,  that  is,  one 
containing  those  thread-like  corpuscles  known  by  the  name 
of  vibrios  and  bacteria,  it  sometimes  happens  that  the  ani- 
mal experiences  no  inconvenience.  Dogs  particularly  re- 
sist with  vigor  the  poisonous  influence  of  such  a  fluid,  but 
the  case  is  different  with  other  species,  and  notably  with 
rabbits.  The  system  becomes  the  seat  of  grave  phenomena, 
almost  always  mortal,  of  which  the  general  group  com- 
poses the  affection  known  by  the  term  septicaemia.  The 
microscopic  organisms  in  such  a  case  poison  the  animal,  not 
only  by  the  mere  fact  of  their  presence  in  the  blood,  but 
besides  and  especially  because  they  develop  and  propagate 
in  it  with  astonishing  rapidity,  in  the  same  way  that  yeast 
reproduces  itself  in  barley-wort.  But  the  most  singular 
thing  in  these  pathological  fermentations  is  the  fact  noted 
some  years  ago  for  the  first  time  by  Coze  and  Feltz,  and 
the  study  of  which  Davaine  took  up  last  year.  Davaine 
demonstrates,  by  experiments  made  on  rabbits  and  Guinea- 
pigs,  that  one  drop  of  blood,  from  an  animal  affected  with 
septicsemia,  has  the  power  of  imparting  the  infection  to 
another  animal  inoculated  with  it,  that  a  drop  taken  from 
the  second  can  transmit  the  disease  to  a  third,  and  so  on. 
Still  more,  very  wonderfully,  the  poisoning  power  of  the 
blood  of  these  animals  increases  with  the  degree  of  advance 
in  the  series  of  inoculations.  The  culture  of  the  virus 
heightens  its  maleficent  properties.  This  gradual  increase 
of  the  virulent  force  is  such  that,  if  we  take  a  drop  of  blood 
from  an  animal  representing  the  twenty-fifth  term  in  a 
series  of  successive  inoculations,  and  so  dilute  this  drop 
with  water  that  a  drop  of  the  dilution  corresponds  to  one 
trillionth  of  the  original  drop,  we  get  a  liquid  of  which  the 
smallest  quantity  still  displays  mortal  activity.  These  ex- 


272  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

periments  of  Davaine,  which  exhibit  the  degree  of  venom 
as  increasing  in  an  inverse  ratio  to  the  apparent  quantity 
of  the  poison,  have  been  repeated  and  confirmed  by  sev- 
eral eminent  physiologists,  among  others  by  Bouley,  and 
have  produced  a  sensation  which  still  continues  in  the 
schools  of  physiology  and  medicine.  Apart  from  the  in- 
herent difficulty  of  forming  a  notion  as  to  the  influence  of 
those  infinitesimal  doses,  they  seemed  to  yield  an  argument 
of  a  kind  to  support  the  assertions  of  homoeopathy.  If  the 
difficulty  is  real,  though  it  may  be  got  over,  the  argument, 
we  take  leave  to  say,  is  worthless.  Let  us  look  at  the  diffi- 
culty first.  This  drop  which  is  still  mortal,  though  rep- 
resenting only  an  infinitely  small  fraction  of  the  original 
quantity  of  poisonous  matter  to  which  it  is  distantly  re- 
lated, permits  no  corpuscle  to  be  detected.  That  is  true, 
yet  it  contains  the  germs  of  them,  and  germs  such  in  number, 
size,  and  reproductive  power,  that  nothing  prevents  them 
from  breeding  again  indefinitely,  in  spite  of  all  efforts  tried 
to  get  rid  of  them.  The  discussions  that  have  just  occurred 
in  the  Academy  of  Medicine  on  this  grave  subject,  almost 
at  the  same  time  that  the  question  of  ferments  was  under 
debate  in  the  Academy  of  Sciences,  leave  no  doubt  as  to 
the  reality  of  this  progressive  breeding  of  virulent  germs 
by  culture.  But  is  this  any  argument  for  the  homceopa- 
thists  ?  None  whatever.  They  attribute  curative  effects  to 
extremely  small  doses  of  certain  inorganic  substances  most 
evidently  inert,  which  can  in  no  way  reproduce  themselves. 
If  the  virulent  elements  occasion  disturbances  so  profound  in 
animal  organisms,  it  is  not  by  reason  of  their  extreme  minute- 
ness, but  it  is  because  they  multiply  with  prodigious  rapidity 
in  the  depths  of  the  tissues  and  humors,  where  they  labor 
in  a  manner  opposed  to  the  harmonious  life  of  the  body 

However  this  may  be,  the  vibrios  and  bacteria  have  an 
undeniable  share  in  the  production  of  human  maladies. 
They  are  found  in  the  blood  of  persons  attacked  by  infec- 


FERMENTS,  FERMENTATIONS,  AND  LIFE.  273 

tious  disorders,  and,  if  in  many  cases  their  relation  to  these 
disorders   is   only  that   of  concomitants,  in    others   their 
relation   of  causality    is   very  clearly  ascertained.      Thus 
Davaine's  investigations   prove   that  the   maladies   called 
carbuncular,  so  formidable  in  men  and  animals,  are  due  to 
the  excessive  development  of  a  species  of  bacteria  in  the 
blood.     Typhoid  fever  also  seems  to  acknowledge  a  cause 
of  the  same  kind.     Rabbits  die  from  inoculation  with  blood 
taken  from  men  attacked  by  this  disease.     Our  knowledge 
upon  this  difficult  subject,  it  must  be  owned,  is  very  little 
advanced,  in  spite  of  the  ardent  labors  devoted  to  its  ex- 
tension  in   the  past  few  years.     The  illusions  of  the  mi- 
croscope and  the  exaggerations  of  a  spirit  of  routine  too 
often  impair  the  value  of  studies  undertaken  in  this  direc- 
tion.   Without  going  so  far  as  does  the  opinion  of  those  who 
attribute  all  these  disorders  to  microscopic  corpuscles,  and 
regard  all  morbid  phenomena  as  fermentations,  it  may  at 
any  rate  be  admitted  that  these  corpuscles,  diffused  through- 
out the  air,  take  an  important  place  among  the  eternal 
enemies  of  health.     At  all  times  surgeons  and  physicians 
have  recognized  the  danger  from  penetration  of  common  air 
into  the  interior  of  the  organism,  by  the  way  of  wounds  or 
otherwise.      We  now  understand   the   explanation  of  the 
danger.     It  is  not  the  gases  of  the  air  that  are  dangerous ; 
but   the  proto-organisms  contained  in  that  fluid  must  be 
charged  with  the  fatal  influence  it  exerts  in  traumatic  cases, 
and  putrid  infection  has  no  other  origin.     Thus  the  anxiety 
of  practitioners  now  is  to  protect  wounds  from  access  by 
the  germs  in  the  air,  by  means  either  of  impermeable  coat- 
ing or  of  antiseptic  dressings  containing  alcohol  or  phenic 
acid,  or  by  pneumatic  closing  up,  or  by  nitration  of  the  air 
itself  through  cotton.      Under  the  influence  of  ideas  dis- 
tinctly introduced  into  science  by  the  researches  we  have 
just  reviewed,  several  practices  in  surgery  have  undergone 
great  modifications. 


274  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

After  examining  the  alterations  produced  in  the  living, 
we  have  to  consider  those  occasioned  by  fermentations  in 
the  dead.  When  life  has  retreated  by  slow  degrees  from  all 
the  parts  of  an  organized  being ;  when,  after  all  partial 
deaths  have  occurred,  total  death  has  possessed  the  depths 
of  the  subject,  and  broken  all  the  springs  of  its  activity,  the 
work  of  putrefaction  begins.  Its  task  is  to  unmake  this 
body,  to  destroy  its  forms,  and  dissever  its  materials.  The 
work  to  be  done  is  to  disorganize  it,  to  reduce  it  into 
solids,  liquids,  and  gases,  fit  to  go  back  again  into  the  vast 
reservoir  whence  new  life  is  incessantly  issuing.  This  is 
the  task  that  heat,  moisture,  air,  and  germs,  will  undertake 
in  unison.  It  is  all  performed  with  steady  diligence.  Na- 
ture knows  no  delays ;  as  soon  as  the  body  is  cold,  the  pro- 
tecting coating  that  covers  all  its  surface,  the  epithelium, 
decays  in  places,  particularly  in  the  moister  parts.  The 
agents  of  disorganization,  vibrios  and  bacteria,  or  rather 
the  germs  of  these  thread-like  corpuscles,  penetrate  through 
the  skin,  wind  into  the  small  ducts,  invade  the  whole 
blood,  and  by  degrees  all  the  organs.  Soon  they  swarm 
everywhere,  almost  as  numerous  as  the  chemical  molecules 
in  the  midst  of  which  they  stir  and  circle.  The  albuminoid 
matters  are  decomposed  into  fetid  gases,  escaping  into  the 
air.  The  fixed  salts,  alkaline  and  earthy-alkaline,  slowly 
release  themselves  from  the  organic  matters  with  which 
they  combined  to  form  the  tissues.  The  fats  oxidize,  and 
grow  acrid  ;  the  moisture  dries  away.  Every  thing  volatile 
vanishes,  and,  at  the  end  of  a  certain  time,  nothing  remains 
save  the  skeleton,  but  a  formless  mingling  of  mineral  prin- 
ciples, a  sort  of  humus,  ready  to  manure  the  earth.  Now, 
all  these  complex  operations  absolutely  required  the  in- 
tervention of  the  infusoria  of  putrefaction.  In  pure  air, 
deprived  of  living  germs,  they  could  not  have  been  accom- 
plished. To  check  putrid  fermentations,  to  insure  the  con- 
servation of  animal  or  vegetable  substances  in  a  state  of 


FERMENTS,  FERMENTATIONS,  AND  LIFE.  275 

perfect  integrity,  only  one  means  avails,  but  that  is  an  in- 
fallible one — that  of  thoroughly  precluding  the  access  to 
them  of  the  aerial  germs  of  vibrios  and  bacteria.  Whether 
we  adopt  D'Appert's  method  and  begin  by  subjecting 
these  substances  to  the  action  of  high  temperature,  pre- 
serving them  after  that  in  hermetically-closed  vessels ;  or 
whether,  as  we  have  seen  very  lately  practised  by  Bous- 
singault,  we  introduce  them  into  an  extremely  cold  medium ; 
or  whether  we  saturate  them  with  such  salts  as  have  an- 
tiseptic properties,  in  every  case  they  are  protected  from 
putrefaction  by  paralyzing  the  effects  of  the  lower  organ- 
isms. The  corruption  of  animals  is  not  more  possible  than 
the  fermentation  of  grape-juice,  barley-wort,  milk  etc., 
when  it  is  made  impossible  for  the  germs  to  act.  This  is 
another  fact  demonstrated  by  Pasteur. 

We  have  just  used  the  term  antiseptic,  that  is,  capa- 
ble of  destroying  germs,  and  preventing  the  action  of  fer- 
ments. The  interest  connected  with  such  substances  is 
easily  understood.  In  truth,  they  are  at  the  present  time 
the  chief  objective  point  of  therapeutic  researches.  At  the 
same  time  that  chemists  and  physiologists  are  engaged 
with  persevering  zeal  in  studying  the  functions  of  micro- 
scopic corpuscles  in  living  Nature,  physicians,  perceiving 
their  manifold  and  baneful  activity  in  the  production  of 
disease,  are  seeking  the  means  of  reaching  and  destroying 
them.  Every  one  knows  those  principles,  like  phenic  acid, 
which  are  extracted  from  pitch,  and  are  also  found  in  smoke, 
to  which  they  impart  antiseptic  properties  that  have  been 
utilized  from  time  immemorial.  Other  substances  have 
been  lately  discovered,  not  less  remarkable  for  their  ener- 
getic resistance  to  fermentation  and  virus.  Among  the 
number  are  the  alkaline  sulphites  and  hyposulphites,  which 
have  been  the  object  of  very  interesting  examination  on 
the  part  of  an  Italian  physician,  Polli;  the  borates  and 
silicates  of  potassa  and  soda,  to  which  Dumas  invited  the 


276  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

attention  of  physiologists  a  year  ago ;  the  acetate  of  po- 
tassa,  and  others.  Hitherto  the  physiological  virtues  of 
active  principles  have  been  studied  only  with  respect  to  the 
higher  order  of  animals:  Dumas  pointed  out  the  great 
interest  there  would  be  in  examining  the  influence  they 
exert  over  the  lower  organisms  charged  with  the  elabora- 
tion of  ferments,  and  over  ferments  themselves.  Such  re- 
searches not  only  contribute  to  a  better  knowledge  of  the 
mechanism  itself  according  to  which  these  principles  affect 
the  system  of  vital  phenomena,  but  they  also  gain  the  most 
useful  indications  for  the  healing  art.  Indeed,  beginning 
with  the  moment  at  which  Dumas  and  other  chemists 
made  known  the  result  of  their  examinations  on  this 
subject,  coincident  also  in  time  with  the  experiments  of 
Davaine  on  septicaemia,  a  vast  number  of  attempts  were 
entered  upon,  in  hospitals  and  in  laboratories,  to  discover 
to  what  extent  these  anti-fermenting  substances  hinder  mor- 
bid fermentations.  These  attempts  are  still  proceeding; 
we  cannot  foretell  their  success,  but  we  are  authorized 
even  now  to  say  that  they  will  not  be  barren  of  advantage 
to  the  healing  art.  In  this,  as  in  all  other  departments  of 
scientific  activity,  we  see  abstract  studies  result  in  useful 
discoveries.1 

As  a  general  statement  of  the  subject,  all  this  immense 
work  of  fermentations,  putrefactions,  and  corruptions  of 
organic  matter,  is  effected  in  the  world  by  a  small  number 
of  species  of  microscopic  cells  and  filaments,  by  fungi  and 
spores  of  the  lowest  order,  of  which  the  germs  fill  our 
atmosphere.  This  is  one  of  the  most  certain  acquisitions 
of  modern  science,  one  of  the  most  important  from  the 
point  of  view  of  natural  philosophy,  one  of  the  most  pro- 
ductive for  those  arts  that  are  concerned  in  improving  the 

1  Since  these  lines  were  written,  silicate  of  soda,  experimented  on  by 
Rabuteau  and  myself,  has  taken  a  fixed  place  in  the  treatment  of  several 
purulent  and  putrid  disorders. 


FERMENTS,  FERMENTATIONS,  AND  LIFE.  277 

condition  of  mankind.  We  may  now  regard  it  as  firmly 
established;  but  let  us  not  forget  that  its  establishment 
has  cost  two  centuries  of  investigations  and  labors.  Leeu- 
wenhoek,  in  the  middle  of  the  seventeeth  century,  was  the 
first  to  reveal  the  microscopic  world  of  the  air,  and  to  con- 
jecture its  momentous  functions.  What  severe  toil,  what 
struggles  and  tedious  trials,  since  the  observations  of  the 
Dutch  micrographer  to  the  time  of  the  experimental 
studies  of  our  contemporary  and  compatriot,  Pasteur ! 


GREAT  EPIDEMICS— ASIATIC  CHOLERA. 


ON  Monday,  the  26th  of  March,  1832,  epidemic  cholera 
made  its  first  appearance  in  Paris.  Four  persons,  living  in 
different  parts  of  the  city,  were  attacked  during  the  day, 
and  died  in  a  few  hours.  On  the  31st  of  March,  thirty-five 
sections  of  the  capital  were  found  to  be  invaded,  and  the 
thirteen  others  the  next  day.  The  patients  all  presented 
the  same  group  of  symptoms.  Already  noted  by  physi- 
cians, who  had  studied  the  disease  in  neighboring  countries, 
these  symptoms  soon  became  as  well  known  to  the  prac- 
titioners of  Paris  and  the  rest  of  France  as  those  of  any 
other  malady. 

How  did  the  cholera  get  into  France  ?  In  the  month 
of  August,  1817,  it  raged  with  uncommon  violence  at  Jes- 
sore,  whence  it  soon  spread  over  the  whole  province  of 
Bengal,  from  the  mouth  of  the  Ganges  to  its  junction  with 
the  Jumna.  In  1819  it  prevailed  in  the  lower  Indies,  at 
Sumatra,  and  the  Isle  of  France ;  in  1820  and  1821  it 
seized  upon  the  whole  of  China,  the  archipelago  of  the 
Philippines,  and  Java.  At  the  same  time  it  crossed  the 
gulf  of  Oman,  extended  along  the  shores  of  the  Persian 
Gulf,  and  made  its  way  into  Persia.  It  ravaged  the  latter 
country  for  a  long  time  before  it  penetrated  into  Europe. 
At  last,  in  1823,  setting  out  from  Recht,  in  the  province  of 
Ghilan,  it  passed  along  the  coast  of  the  Caspian  Sea,  and 
crossed  the  boundary  of  Russia.  By  the  22d  of  Septem- 


GREAT  EPIDEMICS— ASIATIC  CHOLERA.  279 

her  of  that  year  it  had  reached  Astrakhan.  It  appeared 
there,  however,  for  a  short  time  only ;  but,  in  1829,  the  chol- 
era, which  had  raged  without  intermission  in  Northern  Persia 
and  Afghanistan,  was  brought  to  Orenburg,  then  to  Tiflis, 
then  to  Astrakhan,  and  this  time  it  prevailed  over  all  Rus- 
sia. By  the  20th  of  September,  1830,  it  broke  out  at  Mos- 
cow, where  it  continued  a  year.  The  plague  then  spread 
as  far  as  Kiev,  and  throughout  all  the  western  provinces  of 
Russia  up  to  the  frontiers  of  Poland.  The  armies  at  that 
time  in  the  field  in  that  country  aided  perceptibly  in  the 
spread  of  the  disease,  and  the  transmission  of  the  epidemic 
by  the  movement  of  troops  was  distinctly  observed  there 
for  the  first  time.  In  May  and  June,  1831,  Moldavia  and 
Galicia,  and,  in  August,  Prussia,  were  invaded ;  then  came 
the  turn  of  Hungary,  Transylvania,  and  the  Baltic  coasts. 
The  27th  of  January,  in  1832,  the  cholera  was  announced 
at  Edinburgh,  and  on  the  10th  of  February  its  presence 
was  made  known  in  London.  From  the  English  coasts  the 
scourge  threatened  France  and  Holland.  The  15th  of 
March,  1832,  it  appeared  at  Calais,  and  on  the  26th  of 
March  it  was  at  Paris.  The  epidemic  in  the  great  city 
lasted  six  months ;  it  gained  its  greatest  intensity  the  9th 
of  April,  on  which  day  there  were  eight  hundred  and 
fourteen  deaths,  remained  stationary  for  a  few  days,  and 
then  began  to  decrease ;  eighteen  thousand  four  hundred 
people  were  carried  off,  out  of  a  population  of  nine  hundred 
and  forty-five  thousand  inhabitants.  From  Paris  the  plague 
had  radiated  in  all  directions,  and  reached  the  rest  of 
France  by  slow  degrees.  English  emigrants  had  carried  it 
on  the  other  hand  to  America,  Portugal,  and  Spain.  It 
did  not  reach  Italy  before  1835.  Switzerland  and  Greece 
were  spared.  The  first  invasion,  as  we  see,  was  very  slow ; 
it  took  twenty  years  to  reach  all  the  world.  The  latter 
invasions  will  display  more  rapidity.  Owing  to  the  activ- 
ity of  transfers,  the  speed  and  frequency  of  communication, 


280  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

the  germs  of  the  cholera  will  be  found  to  circulate  after 
this  with  surprising  celerity. 

Between  the  years  1837  and  1847,  Europe,  freed  from 
the  cholera,  cared  very  little  about  it ;  but  physicians,  who 
followed  with  a  watchful  eye  the  movement  of  diseases  on 
the  surface  of  the  globe,  still  felt  the  fear  of  an  earlier  or 
later  return  of  the  Asiatic  scourge.  An  epidemic  which 
had  ravaged  the  Burman  Empire  in  1842,  and  Afghanistan 
and  Tartary  next,  had  reached  Persia  toward  the  end  of 
1845.  Thence  it  took  its  course  in  two  different  directions, 
from  east  to  west  by  way  of  Bagdad  and  Mecca,  and  on  the 
north  toward  Tauris  and  the  Caucasian  provinces.  In  the 
early  part  of  1847  the  cholera  broke  out  in  the  west  of  the 
Caucasus  among  the  ranks  of  the  Russian  army  then  keep- 
ing the  field  in  Circassia,  and  by  slow  degrees  it  reached 
the  rest  of  Europe.  Thus  on  the  5th  of  October,  1848,  a 
vessel  coming  from  Hamburg  with  sailors  aboard  affected 
with  cholera  landed  at  Sunderland ;  on  the  24th  of  that 
month  a  part  of  Great  Britain  was  infected  ;  on  the  20th 
of  the  same  month,  immediately  after  an  English  ship  had 
come  into  port  at  Dunkirk,  the  disease  made  its  appearance 
in  the  north  of  France;  Lille,  Calais,  Fecamp,  Dieppe, 
Rouen,  Douai,  in  succession  suffered  the  attack  of  the 
scourge.  The  29th  of  January,  in  1849,  immediately  after 
the  arrival  of  a  battalion  of  infantry-chasseurs  coming  from 
Douai,  the  first  case  of  cholera  was  noted  at  St.-Denis.  On 
the  7th  of  March  the  plague  was  at  Paris. 

Those  two  epidemics  of  which  we  have  spoken  were 
thus  of  direct  Asiatic  origin.  The  same  thing  could  hardly 
be  said  of  that  which  raged  in  Europe  from  1852  to  1855  ; 
at  least  the  track  of  no  epidemic  was  followed  marking  a 
progress  from  east  to  west  and  from  south  to  north.  This 
visitation,  after  having  prevailed  without  much  violence  in 
Bohemia  about  the  end  of  1851,  displays  itself  with  sudden 
and  remarkable  intensity,  in  the  month  of  May,  1852,  in 


GREAT   EPIDEMICS— ASIATIC  CHOLERA.  281 

the  grand-duchy  of  Posen,  whence  it  spreads  at  first 
toward  the  east  in  the  direction  of  Russia,  and  then  tow- 
ard the  west,  approaching  Germany.  In  1853  we  find  it 
in  Denmark,  Sweden,  and  Norway,  and  then  in  England 
and  France,  where  it  reached  its  highest  point  of  virulence 
in  1854.  During  this  fatal  year  the  scourge  ravaged  the 
whole  of  Europe.  Those  great  movements  of  troops  which 
were  occurring  at  that  period  facilitated  the  diffusion  of  the 
poison,  while  at  the  same  time  the  great  multitudes  col- 
lected together  in  Turkey  and  the  Crimea  formed  a  kind 
of  secondary  centre  for  the  abundant  increase  of  epidemic 
effluvia.  The  cholera  of  1852  to  1855  entered  Paris  in 
November,  1853,  declined  in  force  there  in  January,  1854, 
revived  in  February,  and  raged  violently  in  March  and 
during  the  following  months,  leaving  the  capital  in  the 
month  of  August.  Sixty-six  departments,  chiefly  those  of 
the  northeast,  received  a  visit  from  the  plague.  It  must 
be  observed  that  Switzerland,  which  had  escaped  the  two 
former  invasions,  paid  its  tribute  this  time. 

Hitherto  these  epidemics  had  made  their  entrance  into 
Europe  only  by  way  of  the  land.  That  of  1865-'66  pene- 
trated it  by  sea,  through  the  ports,  principally  those  of 
Marseilles  and  Constantinople.  The  cholera  was  intro- 
duced in  1866  into  the  Hedjaz  by  way  of  India  and  Java. 
It  made  terrible  ravages  there,  and  the  pilgrims,  mad  with 
terror,  hurried  in  crowds  to  Djeddah,1  on  the  Red  Sea,  where 
they  got  the  means,  almost  by  force,  of  embarkation  to  the 
port  of  Suez.  From  the  17th  of  May  to  the  10th  of  June 
ten  steamers  brought  into  that  city  from  twelve  to  fifteen 
thousand  pilgrims,  more  or  less  ill,  who  thence  scattered 
themselves  over  all  Egypt.  By  the  3d  of  June,  Egypt  was 
invaded,  and  in  less  than  three  months  over  sixty  thousand 

1  Djeddah  is  a  port  on  the  Red  Sea,  distant  only  two  days'  journey 
from  Mecca ;  it  is  the  point  of  embarkation  for  pilgrims  returning  by  sea 
to  Egypt,  Asia  Minor,  etc. 
13 


282  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

victims  were  counted  there.  The  panic  that  seized  the 
inhabitants  brought  on  a  considerable  emigration,  which 
was  directed  to  the  great  commercial  towns  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean coasts — Beyrout,  Cyprus,  Malta,  Smyrna,  Constan- 
tinople, Trieste,  and  Marseilles — whence  the  cholera  could 
easily  extend  into  the  rest  of  Europe.  In  the  former  epi- 
demics the  disease,  traveling  by  land,  took  years  to  pass 
over  difficult  routes.  This  time,  brought  over  the  sea  by 
steam,  it  needed  but  a  few  months  to  become  mistress  of 
Europe. 

To  sum  up,  four  great  epidemics  may  be  counted  up  to 
this  time  in  France,  those  of  1832, 1849, 1854-'55,  and,  last, 
that  of  1865,  which  continued  more  than  two  years.  The 
invasion  of  1832  attacks  fifty-six  departments,  and  de- 
stroys during  the  year  from  a  hundred  and  ten  to  a  hun- 
dred and  twenty  thousand  victims;  in  1849,  the  plague 
ravages  fifty -seven  departments,  and  causes  from  a  hun- 
dred to  a  hundred  and  ten  thousand  deaths  ;  the  epidemic 
in  1854  gradually  extends  to  seventy  departments,  and  de- 
stroys over  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  people ;  that 
of  1865  begins  in  the  month  of  June,  rages  for  some  time 
at  Marseilles  and  Toulon,  does  not  reach  Paris  till  several 
months  later,  revives  there  during  the  following  summer, 
lingers  through  the  winter  in  the  northwest  of  France,  and 
only  disappears  completely  at  the  end  of  1867,  after  having 
ravaged  less  territory,  and  produced  a  smaller  mortality, 
than  the  former  epidemics  did.1 

If  science  has  succeeded  in  tracing  with  some  exactness 
the  geographical  advance  of  the  symptoms  of  cholera,  it 
has  hitherto  been  powerless  in  fixing  the  real  relations  of 
that  disease  with  the  totality  of  conditions  of  climate, 
geology,  society,  etc.  The  many  and  diligent  researches 
undertaken  upon  this  subject  have  as  yet  yielded  only  ques- 

1  The  mortality  occasioned  by  this  epidemic  in  France  is  not  yet  quite 
ascertained.  In  Paris  alone  more  than  six  thousand  fell  victims  to  it. 


GREAT  EPIDEMICS— ASIATIC  CHOLERA.  283 

tionable  and  contradictory  results.  In  Europe,  high  re- 
gions have  generally  been  spared,  but  the  epidemic  has 
raged  violently  on  the  plateaus  of  Mexico  and  the  summits 
of  the  Himalayas.  If  localities  overlying  granite  and  other 
solid  rocks  have  seemed  to  enjoy  special  immunity,  as  Pet- 
tenkofer  has  proved,  cases  are  known,  like  that  of  Helsing- 
fors  in  1849,  in  which  those  parts  of  the  town  built  on 
granite  were  decimated,  while  the  marshy  parts  and  those 
near  the  shore  remained  exempt.  Some  countries,  such  as 
WUrtemberg,  some  cities,  Lyons  for  instance,  have  hitherto 
escaped  the  attacks  of  the  pestilence  almost  wholly,  with- 
out any  assignable  reason.  What  is  more  indisputable  is 
the  fact  that  the  collection  of  multitudes  of  people  facilitates 
the  development  of  the  disease.  Armies  in  the  field,  popu- 
lous cities,  make  a  sort  of  centre  from  which  it  radiates. 
Thus  the  war  in  Poland  in  1831  seems  to  have  been  the  cause 
of  the  rapid  spread  of  the  cholera  in  Europe.  We  know 
no  instance  of  a  rural  population  swept  by  the  epidemic 
where  there  was  not  a  town  in  the  neighborhood  which 
had  first  suffered  from  its  effects.  In  the  towns,  the  most 
closely-built  and  unwholesome  quarters  are  attacked  and 
affected'more  severely  than  the  others.  In  a  word,  the  chol- 
era has  a  special  affinity  for  large  collections  of  human  be- 
ings ;  in  them  it  concentrates,  and  through  them  it  spreads. 
Observed  facts  are  decisive  in  this  respect,  and  no  argument 
could  prevail  against  the  accumulated  evidence.  The  close 
study  of  epidemics  shows  that  we  must  attribute  the  more 
or  less  rapid  spread  of  cholera  beyond  the  centre  of  its  ori- 
gin neither  to  winds  nor  to  water-courses,  nor  to  supposed 
miasmatic  emanations,  but  it  must  be  attributed  to  pilgrim- 
ages, fairs,  movements  of  troops,  and  similar  changes  of 
place  by  masses  of  men.  Single  travelers  in  good  health 
have,  as  may  well  be  imagined,  very  few  chances  of  carry- 
ing the  disease  with  them  from  an  infected  country  to  a 
healthy  one ;  but  travelers  in  crowds,  among  whom  there 


284  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

are  always  more  or  fewer  sick  ones  to  be  found,  necessa- 
rily transport  the  seeds  of  the  plague.  The  Crimean  War 
afforded  many  proofs  of  this ;  on  that  occasion  it  was  our 
troops  that  imported  the  cholera  into  the  East.  The  fol- 
lowing fact  is  peculiarly  instructive  :  the  Bosquet  division, 
affected  with  cholera,  pitched  camp  at  Baltchick  the  9th  of 
August,  where  a  great  part  of  our  squadron,  till  then  ex- 
empt, was  anchored.  At  the  end  of  ten  days  it  was  at- 
tacked, and  in  less  than  a  week  it  counted  more  than  eight 
hundred  dead  in  an  effective  force  of  thirteen  thousand  sail- 
ors. If  further  instances  were  needed,  we  might  mention 
also  the  introduction  of  the  cholera  in  1865  at  Guadeloupe. 
The  labors  of  Marshal  de  Calvi  and  of  a  skillful  surgeon  in 
our  navy,  Pellarin,  prove  that  the  cholera  was  brought  into 
Pointe-a-Pitre  by  the  ship  Sainte-Marie,  equipped  at  Bor- 
deaux the  14th  of  September,  1865,  cleared  the  same  day  for 
Matamoras,  in  Mexico,  and  touching  at  Pointe-a-Pitre  the 
20th  of  the  following  October. 

On  the  whole,  it  is  certain  that  the  cholera  travels  from 
one  country  to  another  by  the  change  of  place  of  masses 
of  human  beings,  which  are  true  moving  centres.  It  regu- 
larly follows  the  great  channels  of  communication,  frequent- 
ed roads,  navigable  rivers,  etc.  Whether  the  question  is 
as  to  pilgrims  in  India,  caravans  in  upper  Asia  and  Eastern 
Russia,  armies  crossing  the  Caucasus,  or  in  our  Crimean 
expedition,  immigrants  in  America,  or  Moslem  pilgrims  to 
Mecca,  the  conditions  of  transmissibility  of  the  epidemic 
are  still  the  same,  its  propagation  is  always  more  rapid 
in  proportion  as  the  means  of  communication  are  more 
speedy. 

How  does  a  human  being  transport  the  cholera  ?  The 
question  is  not  completely  settled.  Some  believe  that  the 
epidemic  germs  are  planted  in  the  organism  itself,  and 
there  preserve  their  vitality.  Others,  as  Pettenkofer,  who 
has  published  remarkable  essays  on  this  subject,  suppose 


GREAT  EPIDEMICS— ASIATIC   CHOLERA.  285 

that  man,  as  an  individual,  has  hardly  any  share  in  the 
propagation  of  the  evil.  This  physician  asserts  that  neither 
the  living  body,  nor  the  corpse,  nor  the  excretions  of  chol- 
era-patients, have  the  power  of  retaining  and  increasing  the 
unknown  miasma  which  is  the  cause  of  the  diffusion  of  dis- 
ease. Pettenkofer  holds  even  that  the  origin  of  the  chol- 
era is  not  to  be  looked  for  in  some  special  physiological 
condition  of  the  Indian  population  in  the  basin  of  the 
Ganges ;  that  the  pest  must  spring  from  certain  circum- 
stances of  soil  and  climate  ;  and,  further,  that  it  can  only  be 
diffused  through  the  cooperation  of  certain  telluric  and  at- 
mospheric elements.  It  is,  perhaps,  going  a  little  too  far 
to  maintain  that  neither  man  nor  animal  matters  take  any 
part  in  the  production  of  the  effluvia  of  cholera,  and  Petten- 
kofer's  theory,  ingenious  as  it  may  seem,  is  not  likely  to  be 
generally  adopted.  The  cholera  sometimes  is  communi- 
cated by  means  of  persons  who  are  themselves  free  from 
it;  this  is  the  sole  argument  used  by  advocates  of  the 
non-transmissible  nature  of  the  disease ;  but  it  has  little 
force,  if  it  can  be  shown  that  the  germs  of  cholera  may 
have  for  their  vehicle  clothes,  baggage,  merchandise,  etc. 
Now,  this  has  been  proved  by  several  authors ;  among  oth- 
ers, Grimaud  de  Caux.  The  latter  even  asserts  that  he 
has  noticed,  at  the  Marseilles  post-office,  cases  of  cholera 
transmitted  by  packets  of  letters. 

Is  the  cholera  contagious  ?  It  is  beyond  dispute  that 
the  cholera  is  brought  into  one  country  by  collected  masses 
of  men  who  have  contracted  it  in  another  country  ;  but  the 
transmission  is  not  direct.  A  person  positively  affected 
with  cholera  does  not  transmit  the  malady  to  this  or  that 
person  who  in  his  turn  communicates  it  to  another,  and 
so  successively.  The  first  patients  who  come  into  a  healthy 
place  infect  the  local  atmosphere,  and  in  that  infected  at- 
mosphere the  germs  of  the  disease  multiply  which  will  carry 
off  more  or  fewer  victims  ;  but  they  may  be  found  among 


NATUKE  AND  LIFE. 

people  who  have  kept  themselves  entirely  apart  from  those 
affected,  as  well  as  among  others  who  have  been  near  them. 
Very  few  physicians  die  while  attending  such  patients.  It 
may  perhaps  be  useful  to  recall  our  personal  experience  on 
this  subject,  and  the  observations  we  made  during  the  epi- 
demic of  1865,  in  connection  with  Legros  and  Goujon  in 
the  laboratory  of  Robin  at  the  practice  school  of  the  medical 
faculty.  Engaged  for  some  months,  and  careless  of  any 
special  precautions,  in  handling  and  examining  in  all  ways 
the  blood  and  excretions  of  cholera-patients,  we  suffered 
no  injurious  effects,  no  inconvenience  even.  Se"dillot  re- 
lates that  during  the  campaign  of  Poland,  in  1831,  it  hap- 
pened to  him  more  than  once  to  sleep  with  impunity  in 
sheets  just  taken  from  patients  who  had  died  of  cholera. 
It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  it  is  not  transmitted  by  the  con- 
tact of  persons  or  objects  affected.  It  is  the  air  which 
within  a  more  or  less  circumscribed  space  is  the  receiver 
of  that  subtile  and  unknown  matter  that  the  poison  lurks  in ; 
we  say  the  receiver,  not  the  vehicle,  for  the  cholera-germ 
which  multiplies  within  that  space  has  no  spontaneous 
tendency  to  move  away  from  it.  Its  movement  further  and 
its  extension  to  a  distance  are  occasioned  by  the  constant 
migrations  of  mankind. 

The  very  noticeable  examinations  of  Tholozan  have 
placed  it  beyond  doubt  that,  independently  of  the  four  great 
epidemics,  the  cholera,  since  1830,  has  hardly  ceased  at  any 
time  to  exist  in  Europe  in  different  degrees  of  intensity 
and  under  varying  forms.  Among  us,  as  in  India,  it  may 
be  epidemic,  endemic,  or  sporadic.  It  has  been  attempted, 
indeed,  to  mark  a  distinction  between  cholera  which  de- 
stroys a  great  number  of  people  at  one  time  and  that  which 
chooses  only  single  victims ;  1  but  these  two  maladies  offer 
no  fundamental  specific  differences.  The  first,  when  it  has 

1  The  latter  has  been  called  "  nostras  cholera,"  in  opposition  to  "Asi- 
atic cholera." 


GREAT  EPIDEMICS— ASIATIC   CHOLERA.  287 

finished  its  work,  languishes,  and  seems  to  disappear,  but 
it  still  continues  to  betray  its  presence  here  and  there  at 
longer  or  shorter  intervals. 

II. 

We  have  seen  that  the  first  great  epidemic  observed  in 
the  Indies,  before  its  appearance  in  Europe,  occurred  in 
1817 ;  at  that  date  the  cholera  became  a  traveler,  but  it 
had  long  existed  in  Asia.  The  testimony  of  philology  and 
archaeology  proves  in  the  clearest  way  that  it  has"  been 
known  there  from  early  antiquity.  Hindoo  mythology  re- 
lates that  the  two  Aswyns,  or  sons  of  Surya,  the  sun,  taught 
medicine  to  Indra,  who  composed  the  " Ayur-Veda,"  the  most 
ancient  medical  book  in  India.  Indra  in  turn  taught  the 
art  to  Dhawantrie,  and  he  had  for  a  -scholar  Susruta,  con- 
temporary with  Rama,  the  hero  of  the  Ramayana.  Now, 
Susruta  left  a  work  which  Dr.  Wise,  director  of  the  medical 
service  at  Bengal,  translated  and  abridged  in  1845,  and  in 
which  a  distinct  description  of  the  cholera  is  found.  It  is 
not  easy  to  give  the  true  date  for  this  composition ;  but 
Tholozan  supposes  there  are  good  reasons  for  fixing  it 
about  the  third  century  before  the  Christian  era.  Other  San- 
scrit works  of  the  same  date  speak  of  a  similar  malady.  The 
most  curious  illustration  is  an  inscription  copied  at  Viz- 
zianuggur  by  Sanderson,  upon  a  monolith,  part  of  the  ruins 
of  an  ancient  temple.  This  inscription,  which  is  ascribed 
to  a  pupil  of  Buddha,  and  seems  to  date  from  an  age  pre- 
ceding the  conquest  of  Alexander,  reads  as  follows :  "  Blue 
lips,  a  shrunken  face,  hollow  eyes,  the  belly  knotted,  the 
limbs  cramped  and  crooked  as  if  by  effect  of  fire,  are  marks 
of  the  cholera,  which  comes  down  by  malign  conjurations 
of  the  priests  to  destroy  heroes.  The  thickened  breath 
clings  to  the  warrior's  face,  his  fingers  are  bent  and  twisted 
in  different  ways ;  he  dies  in  contortions,  the  victim  of  the 
wrath  of  Siva."  Many  Hindoo  and  Persian  works  of  a  later 


288  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

date  contain  similar  proofs.  When  the  Portuguese,  in  1498, 
and  afterward  the  Dutch  and  the  English,  landed  on  the 
shores  of  India,  they  had  frequent  opportunities  to  observe 
epidemic  cholera  and  it  is  not  strange  that  a  description  of 
the  disease  could  have  been  made  by  European  doctors  in  the 
seventeenth  century.  We  have  still  detailed  accounts  of 
the  plagues  that  raged  in  the  eighteenth  century,  of  which 
that  of  Hurdwar  is  the  most  famous.  In  short,  to  whatever 
period  we  recur,  we  come  upon  one  of  the  links  of  that  long 
chronological  chain  of  the  cholera,  which  begins  with  the 
oldest  books  of  Hindoo  medicine. 

The  causes  which  have  always  aided  the  development 
of  cholera  in  the  Indies  are  active  there  at  the  present  day. 
Almost  every  year  the  disease  breaks  out  in  places  where 
pilgrims  gather.  Among  these  localities,  of  which  some 
are  also  commercial  towns,  three  particularly  attract  the 
crowd  :  they  are  Hurdwar,  on  the  Ganges,  in  the  north  of 
Hindostan ;  Juggernath,  on  the  coast  of  Orissa,  at  the 
northwest  of  the  gulf  of  Bengal ;  and  Conjeveram,  in  the 
south  of  Madras.  Pilgrims  arrive  at  these  places  in  the 
warm  season,  after  a  journey  of  more  than  a  hundred  leagues, 
almost  always  made  on  foot,  in  a  state  of  exhaustion  and 
wretchedness  of  which  we  can  hardly  form  an  idea.  Once 
in  these  holy  places,  their  crowding  together,  their  bad  food, 
uncleanliness,  and  debauchery,  bring  them  into  such  con- 
ditions that  the  germs  of  plague  develop,  and  the  epidemic 
kindles  among  them.  This  infected  multitude  then  scatters 
abroad,  and  passes  through  the  country  in  all  directions, 
sowing  miasma  and  contagion. 

Thus  these  immense  gatherings  of  people  favor  the  ex- 
tension of  the  cholera.  Are  they  at  the  same  time  its  origi- 
nating causes  ?  We  cannot  answer  positively  in  either  way. 
All  possible  suppositions  have  been  indulged  as  to  the 
origin  of  the  cholera  in  India,  but  none  of  them  really  ex- 
plains the  difficulty.  What  is  the  cause  that  produces  the 


GREAT  EPIDEMICS— ASIATIC  CHOLERA.  289 

birth  of  the  miasma  ?  Is  it  the  crowding  together  of  pil- 
grims under  bad  hygienic  conditions  ?  Is  it  the 'putrefaction 
of  vegetable  matters  under  a  torrid  sun,  or  the  stagnant 
waters  of  the  Ganges,  loaded  with  corpses  and  filth,  or  is 
it  a  special  state  of  the  soil  ?  We  do  not  know.  What  is 
certain  is,  that  pilgrimages  aid  in  propagating  the  cholera, 
and  that  it  in  some  way  seeks  out  a  pestilential  atmosphere. 
Therefore  the  wish  is  reasonable  that  the  British  Govern- 
ment should  control  these  pilgrimages,  and  give  greater 
activity  to  the  labors  of  canal  -  making  and  the  sanitary 
measures  it  has  undertaken  to  render  the  country  healthy. 
When  medical  savants  suggest  going  to  attack  the  evil  at 
its  root  and  destroy  it  forever,  and  preach  a  crusade  to  India 
in  which  all  civilized  nations  should  join  to  cut  off  the  heads 
of  the  hydra,  as  Hercules  of  old  did  those  of  the  Lernean 
monster,  we  may  applaud  the  spirit  and  generosity  of  the 
project,  but  must  ask  what  means  are  to  be  found  for  its 
execution. 

Persia,  situated  between  India  and  Europe,  is  not  a 
focus  of  cholera,  but  it  is  a  country  where  the  disease  finds 
so  suitable  a  region  that  it  very  often  prevails  in  it.  Only 
a  few  years  ago  the  shah's  kingdom  presented  a  miserable 
spectacle  in  this  respect.  Dirt  and  offal  were  not  removed ; 
the  bodies  of  animals,  camels,  oxen,  horses,  mules,  were  eaten 
by  dogs,  jackals,  and  birds  of  prey,  in  the  towns  or  in  their 
environs.  A  deeply-rooted  religious  belief  in  the  country 
caused  it  to  be  regarded  as  a  sacred  duty  to  carry  the 
dead  far  away  and  bury  them  in  holy  cemeteries.  This 
transportation  was  performed  under  deplorable  circum- 
stances. The  bodies,  already  in  different  stages  of  putre- 
faction, were  merely  wrapped  in  felt  cloths,  seldom  inclosed 
in  coffins  of  thin,  ill-joined  boards.  In  this  state  the  bodies 
were  carried  on  the  backs  of  camels  or  mules,  in  all  weathers, 
to  distances  averaging  thirty  or  forty  days'  march.  There 
were  caravans  of  corpses,  as  there  are  caravans  of  pilgrims ; 


290  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

and  travelers  occasionally  met  some  of  them  carrying  one 
or  two  hundred  dead  bodies.  It  is  needless  to  say  how 
greatly  these  moving  charnel-houses,  by  infecting  the  at- 
mosphere, must  have  increased  the  energy  of  epidemic 
manifestations.  The  International  Conference  urged  upon 
the  Persian  Government  to  prevent  the  extension  of  the 
cholera-poison  throughout  its  own  territory  by  all  possible 
means.  It  insisted  on  effecting  the  suppression  of  customs 
and  practices  which  could  only  keep  up  the  unhealthy  state 
of  the  country ;  it  demanded  the  formation  of  councils  of 
health  commissioned  to  secure  the  carrying  out  of  regula- 
tions admitted  to  be  indispensable  to  protect  Persia  itself, 
and  consequently  to  shield  Europe  against  the  attacks  of 
the  scourge.  Similar  wishes  had  already  been  many  times 
expressed  to  the  Shah  of  Persia  by  his  physician,  Tholozan. 
In  1867  a  formal  edict  of  the  prince  forbade  everywhere 
transportation  of  bodies ;  at  the  same  time  other  sanitary 
reforms  were  planned.  The  suggestions  of  the  Conference, 
therefore,  could  not  have  been  otherwise  than  generally 
well  received  by  the  government  of  Teheran  ;  but,  if  it  made 
no  opposition  itself,  it  has  not  been  and  it  is  not  yet  easy 
for  it  to  overcome  that  of  the  inhabitants.  Not  in  a  day, 
especially  among  Eastern  populations,  can  the  suppression 
of  ancient  customs  be  brought  about,  when  they  are  bound 
up  with  religious  prejudices.  The  members  of  the  Con- 
ference seem  not  to  have  always  given  sufficient  heed  to 
the  difficulties  of  such  an  undertaking,  and  Tholozan  urged 
with  much  wisdom  the  need  of  using  caution  and  modera- 
tion. However  that  may  be,  Proust,  physician  of  the  Paris 
hospitals,  who  was  charged  in  1869  with  a  mission  to  Rus- 
sia and  Persia,  for  the  study  of  preventive  measures  against 
cholera,  could  ascertain  for  himself  the  excellent  inclina- 
tion of  the  Persian  administration.  "  Most  of  the  measures 
which  the  French  Government  would  urge  to  have  put  in 
practice,"  says  Proust,  "  have  already  been  begun  upon  by 


GREAT  EPIDEMICS— ASIATIC  CHOLERA.  291 

the  government  of  the  shah.  A  high  council  of  health  has 
been  instituted ;  the  chief  physicians  of  Persia  have  been 
invited  to  seats  in  this  council.  They  have  considered  the 
most  important  questions  of  public  and  private  hygiene." 
Let  us  add  that  the  Persian  Government  has  determined, 
on  Tholozan's  suggestion,  to  order  the  breaking  off  of  all  in- 
tercourse, and  the  prevention  of  pilgrimages  in  case  the  in- 
vasion of  cholera  into  neighboring  countries  is  ascertained. 
In  short,  the  situation  is  greatly  improved  as  regards  the 
internal  hygiene  of  Persia,  and  it  grows  better  every  day, 
which  is  a  great  point  gained.  But  a  new  question  is  now 
presented :  how  can  the  cholera  be  prevented  from  passing 
out  of  Asia  into  Europe  ?  This  is  one  of  the  gravest  diffi- 
culties of  sanitary  police  and  international  hygiene.  Let 
us  consider  what  has  been  done  to  solve  it,  and  what  degree 
of  success,  or  rather  what  hope  of  succeeding  at  all,  has 
been  gained. 

The  cholera  passes  from  Asia  to  Europe  by  land  and  by 
sea,  that  is,  by  the  frontier  between  Russia  and  Persia,  and 
by  the  Caspian  Sea.  It  may  also  come  across  the  Mediter- 
ranean, either  from  Asia  Minor  or  from  Egypt,  and  conse- 
quently there  is  occasion  to  prevent  its  introduction  into 
those  two  countries  by  the  boundary-lines  separating  them, 
whether  from  Persia  or  from  Arabia.  This  simple  geo- 
graphical route  shows  the  range  and  complication  of  the 
system  it  is  proposed  to  establish.  All  European  govern- 
ments have  shown  active  diligence  in  organizing  the  plan 
of  protective  measures  and  preparing  the  working  of  those 
sanitary  arrangements  suggested  by  the  members  of  the 
Conference,  that  is,  the  quarantine  service.  It  would  be  too 
soon  to  decide  in  a  positive  way  as  to  the  efficiency  of  quar- 
antines ;  but  it  is  as  well  to  say  that  quite  a  number  of  com- 
petent physicians  absolutely  deny  it,  and  that  such  an 
opinion  is  unfortunately  too  well  supported  by  facts. 

Proust,  who  has  examined  carefully  the  boundary  be- 


NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

tween  Russia  and  Persia  on  which  Russia  has  established 
quarantines  and  stations  of  Cossacks,  believes  that  an  active 
enough  watchfulness  to  defeat  the  entrance  of  cholera  on 
that  side  may  be  exerted  over  that  region.     Yet  he  con- 
fesses that  it  is  not  easy  to  interfere  with  the  movements 
of  smugglers  at  several  points.     As  concerns  its  introduc- 
tion through  the  Caspian  Sea,  the  question  is  less  simple. 
All  vessels  sailing  from  the  Persian. shore  of  that  great  lake 
take  for  their  point  of  arrival  on  the  Russian  side  a  certain 
number  of  ports,  the  chief  of  which  are  Bakou,  Derbent, 
and  Astrakhan.     Some  of  these  ports  have  lazarettos ;  oth- 
ers,  as  Astrakhan,  have  no  sanitary  establishments.     The 
number  of  officials  seems  to  be  too  small  also ;  nowhere  are 
the  examination  and  questioning  of  passengers  rigorously 
attended  to.     At  least,  this  is  what  Proust  observed.     This 
physician  was  urgent  with  the  governments  of  Russia  and 
the  Caucasus  to  obtain  more  rigorous  and  efficient  oversight. 
He  demanded  especially  the  establishment   of  vigilance 
stations  along  the  coast  so  as  to  prevent,  in  case  of  need, 
the  landing  of  vessels  intending  to  break  the  prescribed 
regulations.     Nothing  could  be  easier,  since  there  are  none 
but  Russian  ships  on  the  Caspian  Sea.     Proust's  observa- 
tions, moreover,  came  the  more  seasonably,  because  the 
quarantine  establishments,  erected  at  an  earlier  period  for 
protection  against  the  plague,  are  in  process  of  alteration. 
He  engaged  the  attention  of  several  high  Russian  function- 
aries in  these  important  interests  ;  he  expressed  his  ideas 
at  length  on  these  subjects  before  the  Medical  Society  at 
Tiflis,  and  came  away  with  the  conviction  that  if  the  plans 
suggested  by  him  are  carried  out  carefully,  as  he  hopes, 
upon  the  shores  of  the  Caspian  Sea,  any  new  introduction 
of  disease  from  Persia  into  Russia  will  become  very  difficult ; 
but  that  remains  to  be  seen  in  the  future. 

Let  us  now  pass  over  to  the  boundaries  of  Persia  and 
of  Turkey  in  Asia.     Along  the  whole  extent  of  the  frontier 


GREAT   EPIDEMICS— ASIATIC  CHOLERA.  393 

between  Persia  and  Turkey,  from  Mount  Ararat  to  the 
Persian  Gulf,  the  Ottoman  Government  keeps  up  vigilance 
stations,  which  it  turns  into  quarantines  at  need.  Now 
these  posts,  costly  to  the  treasury,  harassing  to  the  in- 
habitants, especially  to  the  Persians,  have  hitherto  been 
powerless  to  keep  the  Ottoman  territory  safe  from  inva- 
sions of  cholera.  This  results  from  the  fact  that  there  is  a 
great  number  of  nomad  tribes  on  this  frontier — Koords, 
Bactrians,  and  others — who  in  summer  drive  their  flocks  to 
pasture  on  the  high  table-lands  of  Persia,  and  in  winter 
come  down  toward  the  plains  of  Asia  Minor.  There  is 
thus  kept  up  on  this  line  a  constant  movement  of  migra- 
tion which  there  is  no  possibility  of  subjecting  to  quaran- 
tine regulations.  Tholozan  believes,  with  reason,  that  in 
this  quarter  the  measures  proposed  by  the  International 
Conference  could  not  be  put  in  force. 

A  more  useful  quarantine  system  is  that  which  prevented 
the  spread  in  Egypt  of  that  epidemic  which  raged  in  1871 
on  the  west  coast  of  the  Red  Sea.  A  part  of  this  country, 
that  in  which  Medina  and  Mecca  are  situated,  was  swept 
by  the  cholera  about  the  end  of  1871.  In  view  of  the 
danger  threatening  Egypt  the  moment  the  pilgrims  should 
return,  the  sanitary  administration  of  that  country  resolved 
at  once  that  if  necessary  all  intercourse  by  sea  between 
Hedjaz  and  Egypt  should  be  stopped ;  but,  not  finding  the 
danger  urgent,  it  afterward  modified  this  determination, 
and  ordered  that  all  pilgrims  returning  from  Mecca  by 
Egypt  should  first  go  and  perform  quarantine  at  El-Wedj, 
a  small  port  on  the  coast  of  Arabia,  situated  three  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  from  Suez,  after  which  they  might  cross  the 
isthmus  by  canal  without  going  into  Egypt,  or  else  undergo 
another  inspection  at  the  station  established  for  that  pur- 
pose at  the  Springs  of  Moses.  A  lazaretto  under  canvas 
was  then  arranged  at  El- Wed j,  under  the  direction  of  two 
physicians.  A  special  commission  was  stationed  at  Suez, 


294  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

to  examine  all  arrivals,  and  the  physicians  appointed  for 
the  supervision  of  Hedjaz  were  requested  to  transmit  to 
Egypt  reports  on  the  sanitary  state  of  the  pilgrims.  The 
prescribed  rules  were  observed,  without  any  appearance 
made  by  cholera  as  usual,  and  it  was  supposed  for  a  time 
that  leave  might  be  given  to  the  vessels  with  their  freight 
of  pilgrims  to  go  directly  to  Suez.  The  first  one  was  on 
the  point  of  sailing,  when  the  epidemic  broke  out  at  Mecca. 
A  carrier  promptly  brought  orders  to  Djeddah  to  deliver 
foul  bills  to  the  vessels,  and  dispatch  the  pilgrims  to  El- 
Wedj.  The  disappointment  of  the  captains  and  ships' 
agents  may  be  imagined.  Several  of  them  even  declared 
that  they  would  sail  straight  for  Suez  in  spite  of  the  order. 
The  firmness  of  the  physicians  prevented  them,  though 
with  great  difficulty.  At  the  same  time  this  revival  of  the 
cholera  at  Mecca  created  so  great  a  panic  among  the  pil- 
grims that  they  deserted  the  city  with  all  speed,  so  as  to 
put  any  gradual  succession  of  departures  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. Hard  as  it  was,  the  lazaretto  at  El-Wedj  discharged 
its  duty  sufficiently,  thanks  to  the  sagacity  and  devoted- 
ness  of  the  medical  men,  and  the  cholera  did  not  make  its 
way  into  Egypt. 

If  the  system  of  sea  quarantines  is  efficient  in  some 
cases,  it  does  not  for  the  most  part  give  governments  the 
means  of  intercepting  the  cholera  with  certainty.  We 
give  another  instance  of  the  most  instructive  kind,  which 
will  close  our  remarks  upon  international  preventive 
measures  against  the  Asiatic  plague. 

Until  the  month  of  May,  in  1856,  quarantine  was  com- 
pulsory and  general  for  persons  arriving  in  Russia  by  sea. 
All  travelers,  without  exception,  were  placed  under  sani- 
tary inspection  and  seclusion  for  from  ten  to  twenty  days. 
A  French  cultivator  of  the  vine  settled  in  the  Crimea  lately 
told  De  Valcourt  that  on  his  arrival  at  Odessa,  in  1848,  he 
with  his  family  and  the  other  passengers  were  made  to  land 


GREAT  EPIDEMICS— ASIATIC   CHOLERA.  295 

on  the  quay  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  the  landing- 
plank  was  withdrawn.  The  passengers,  guarded  by  the 
quarantine  soldiers,  were  obliged  to  remain,  without  food 
or  drink,  in  the  hot  sun  till  four  in  the  afternoon.  At  last, 
surrounded  by  lines  of  functionaries,  they  were  led  to  the 
inspection-room.  There  a  physician  questioned  them  and 
made  them  undress  completely.  A  coarse  shirt  and  Russian 
soldier's  coat  were  then  given  them.  Their  clothes  were 
not  given  back  until  twenty-four  hours  later,  after  fumigat- 
ing. Their  seclusion  lasted  fifteen  days,  though  there  was 
no  epidemic  either  in  Russia  or  in  any  of  the  ports  at  which 
the  vessel  had  touched.  In  1856  these  severities  were  put 
an  end  to.  They  were  again  put  in  force,  though  a  little 
moderated.  At  present,  the  cholera  prevailing  in  Odessa, 
quarantine  is  in  operation,  and  employs  a  large  force  of 
men.  Now  De  Valcourt,  on  his  return  from  Russia,  as- 
serts that  thirty  travelers  a  day,  on  an  average,  land  at 
Odessa  and  perform  quarantine  there,  while  four  hundred 
travelers  arrive  by  rail,  and  pass  freely  into  the  town.  On 
the  side  of  Turkey  it  is  quite  as  easy  to  elude  quarantine 
regulations.  This  year,  the  Ottoman  Government,  to  pro- 
tect the  country  against  the  cholera  prevailing  in  Russia, 
has  established  a  quarantine  of  ten  full  days  at  Sulina  for 
ships  going  to  the  Danube,  on  the  Bosporus  for  those 
bound  to  Constantinople,  and  at  Batoum  for  those  coming 
from  the  ports  of  the  Caucasus.  Besides,  it  has  discon- 
tinued steam  service  between  Galatz  and  Odessa.  What 
is  the  result  ?  It  is  this,  that  travelers  leave  Russia  by  the 
Wolociska  Railway  to  the  frontier  between  Austria  and 
Russia,  and  reach  Constantinople  by  Vienna  and  Burrach, 
as  the  Russian  embassador  near  the  Sublime  Porte  has 
just  done.  The  railway  joining  Kichenev  to  Jassy  will 
soon  be  finished  and  the  passage  will  be  very  much  more 
shortened.  Quarantine,  therefore,  is  futile. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  system  of  quarantines  offers 


296  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

complications  and  difficulties  which  make  it  in  many  in- 
stances inefficient  and  impracticable.  Not  only  is  it  difficult 
to  find  sufficiently  vigilant  officials,  but  it  is  often  impossi- 
ble to  block  the  transfers  and  the  movements  of  travelers 
which  are  agents  in  spreading  the  epidemic. 

.    III. 

If  it  is  out  of  the  question  to  destroy  the  cholera  at  its 
source,  if  it  is  very  difficult  to  prevent  its  making  its  way  to 
us,  does  not  science  at  least  possess  an  antidote  to  meet  it 
with,  a  remedy  to  fight  with  against  it  when  it  has  succeed- 
ed in  making  a  lodgment  among  us  ?  Just  as  in  speaking 
of  the  nature  of  the  evil  the  physician  must  own  the  almost 
entire  uncertainty  of  knowledge,  so,  in  view  of  the  victims 
of  the  cholera's  attacks,  he  must  confess  the  impotence  of 
art,  almost  always  beyond  remedy.  The  prescriptions  sug- 
gested for  the  cure  of  cholera  are  as  numerous  as  the  sup- 
positions framed  for  its  explanation.  On  either  hand  the 
illusion  is  the  same.  Those  who  regard  the  cholera  as  a 
disease  caused  by  parasites,1  naturally  look  for  the  methods 
of  destroying  these  parasites.  Doctors  who  look  on  it  as 
an  affection  by  virus,  occasioning  a  kind  of  molecular 
change  in  the  whole  mass  of  the  humors,  and  especially  of 
the  albuminoid  matters,  are  persuaded  that  acids  might  be 
of  healing  effect  in  these  cases.  Others,  supposing  that 
the  most  important  point  of  all  is  to  restore  the  liquidity 
of  blood  coagulated  in  the  veins,  resort  to  alkalies.  Salts 
of  copper  have  also  been  employed,  regarded  by  some  phy- 
sicians as  genuine  specifics,  as  also  alkaloids,  such  as  caf- 
eine,  etc.  Those  physiologists  who  fix  the  seat  of  the  dis- 
ease in  the  nervous  structure  of  the  great  sympathetic  are 

1  Among  the  supporters  of  this  notion  must  be  cited  a  German  doctor, 
Hallier,  who  thinks  it  is  proved  that  the  cholera  is  caused  by  micrococ- 
cus.  And  Hallier  explains  all  diseases  by  micrococcus,  or  by  infinitely 
little  beings  of  the  same  order. 


GREAT  EPIDEMICS— ASIATIC   CHOLERA.  297 

•% 

•% 

induced  to  preach  up  antispasmodic  drugs.  In  a  word,  rem- 
edies have  almost  all  seemed  to  fail  of  useful  effect,  and  the 
most  sensible  treatment  is  still  the  same  as  that  of  cholera 
in  the  early  days,  the  treatment  of  symptoms.  It  consists, 
not  in  prostrating  the  disease  solidly  by  making  one  single 
heroic  attack  on  it,  but  in  fighting  it  through  successive 
skirmishes  by  attacking  the  various  symptoms  of  the  evil, 
one  after  the  other.  Cholera-patients  have  cramps — we 
endeavor  to  check  them.  They  suffer  cold — we  warm  them 
by  frictions  and  drinks.  Their  circulation  becomes  slow 
and  languid — we  try  to  restore  its  regular  conditions  by 
stimulating  the  flow  of  the  blood.  The  secretions  diminish — 
we  provoke  them  by  suitable  means.  Thus,  and  without 
attacking  the  evil  at  its  root,  we  often  reach  fortunate  re- 
sults. The  great  obstacle  to  the  action  of  remedies  on 
cholera-patients  is  the  fact  that  they  can  absorb  nothing. 
Some  doctors  have  had  the  idea  of  injecting  medicinal  prin- 
ciples directly,  either  beneath  the  skin,  or  into  the  veins. 
Some  attempts  of  this  kind  have  succeeded,  and  this  method 
is  the  right  one.  Only  we  need  to  continue  our  advances 
in  it  with  persistent  and  systematic  boldness,  if  we  would 
secure  certain  advance  in  the  treatment  of  cholera  and  other 
diseases.  Instead  of  feeling  the  way  blindly  and  timidly 
in  experiments  on  the  living  subject,  there  is  need  of  force 
and  directness  in  proceeding.  It  is  the  only  way  to  have 
at  some  future  day  strong  and  tempered  weapons  for  our 
contests  with  disease. 

It  is  perhaps  proper  in  connection  with  this  to  point 
out  to  the  attention  of  physicians  the  remarkable  proper- 
ties of  the  alkaline  borates  and  silicates  recently  disclosed 
by  Dumas.  These  salts,  which  exert  no  very  striking 
poisonous  influence  upon  superior  organisms,  are  on  the 
contrary  fatal  to  the  microscopic  beings  and  the  subtile 
agents,  organized  or  formless,  which  take  an  undeniable 
part  in  infectious  diseases.  Experiments  made  quite  late- 


298  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

ly  have  proved  that  at  least  such  substances  check  the  de- 
velopment of  every  kind  of  fermentation,  delay  putrid  de- 
composition, and  impede  the  decay  of  organic  matter.  It 
is  allowable  to  suppose  that  these  qualities,  distinctly  noted 
in  chemists'  laboratories,  will  be  effectual  in  the  laboratory 
of  the  animal  system. 

Apart  from  the  remedies  used  against  decided  cholera, 
there  are  preventives  which  may  be  prudently  and  season- 
ably employed :  these  are  disinfecting  and  antiseptic  sub- 
stances, as  phenic  acid,  coal-tar,  chloride  of  lime.  The  cor- 
rosive nature  of  these  substances  prevents  their  internal 
administration,  and  the  test  of  their  therapeutic  effect ;  but 
it  is  positive  that  they  exert  a  destructive  influence  over  all 
organic  corpuscles,  and  usually  annul  their  injurious  proper- 
ties. On  this  account  it  is  wise  to  employ  them  in  cleans- 
ing and  sweetening  the  atmosphere,  particularly  the  confined 
air  of  rooms  and  hospitals,  while  epidemics  are  prevalent. 
It  is  the  duty  of  government  to  take  prompt  steps  and  give 
plain  instructions  to  insure  the  use  of  these  substances 
everywhere  at  periods  when  they  are  required. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  individual  hygiene,  the  only 
prescription  is  to  live  regularly  and  temperately.  Excesses, 
always  dangerous,  are  more  than  ever  so  during  an  epidem- 
ic. It  is  a  matter  of  course  that  extreme  cleanliness  is  not 
less  imperative ;  what,  perhaps,  is  yet  more  so  is  calmness 
and  mental  cheerfulness.  Moral  force  is  here  no  less  im- 
portant than  physical  health.  While  cholera  prevails,  dis- 
orders of  the  bowels  are  very  common,  and  in  the  very 
great  majority  of  cases  the  disease  does  not  come  as  a  sud- 
den attack,  but  as  the  result  of  diarrhoea,  more  or  less 
protracted.  Experience  has  shown  that  the  breaking  out 
of  cholera  is  often  prevented  by  attacking  this  first  threat- 
ening symptom  with  opiates  and  the  subnitrate  of  bis- 
muth. When  the  cholera  prevails  in  England,  the  gov- 
ernment organizes  visits  to  every  house,  to  ascertain  and 


GREAT  EPIDEMICS— ASIATIC  CHOLERA.  299 

treat,  if  there  be  occasion,  such  forerunners  of  the  pesti- 
lence. 

We  find  that  there  is  as  yet  no  specific  against  cholera. 
Can  therapeutics  indulge  the  hope  of  hereafter  discovering 
one  ?  We  have  no  reason  to  doubt  it.  An  heroic  remedy 
for  intermittent  fevers  has  been  discovered,  quinine,  though 
we  have  no  knowledge  whatever  of  the  first  cause  of  that 
disease,  nor  the  least  notion  of  what  the  miasma  of  marshes 
is.  Perhaps  in  the  same  way  we  shall  learn  how  to  destroy 
the  miasma  of  cholera  before  penetrating  its  inner  nature. 
Meanwhile,  it  is  allowable  to  rely  on  this,  that  the  cholera, 
subject  in  that  respect  to  that  mysterious  law  which  gov- 
erns the  secular  evolution  of  epidemics,  will  lose  its  inten- 
sity in  proportion  to  its  remoteness  from  its  origin.  Those 
morbid  germs,  those  forms  of  virus,  seem  not  to  be  gifted 
with  the  power  of  indefinite  reproduction.  They  exhaust 
themselves  by  their  own  activity.  The  death  they  sow  at 
last  overtakes  themselves  some  day.  Is  it  the  influence  of 
civilization  which  thus  sets  a  limit  to  their  deadly  work,  or 
is  that  end  assigned  to  their  career  the  fulfillment  of  a 
fixed  decree  ?  In  any  case  the  cholera  must  die  some  day. 
Till  then  the  best  way  of  working  for  its  annihilation  is  to 
pursue  the  study  of  it  scientifically. 

We  must  see,  therefore,  what  science  and  its  teachings 
suggest  for  the  future  in  the  nature  of  labors  that  may 
serve  to  elucidate  the  serious  problem  of  the  character  of 
cholera,  and  of  infectious  diseases  generally.  Researches 
in  physics  and  chemistry  grow  daily  easier,  so  simple  are 
their  phenomena,  so  sure  their  formulas,  their  theories  so 
interdependent,  and  their  processes  so  exact.  The  share 
given  in  them  to  discovery  and  origination  becomes  ever 
smaller ;  that  taken  by  measurement  and  calculation  grows 
constantly  in  proportion.  The  masters  have  enounced  the 
grand  laws  and  fundamental  methods  ;  the  scholars  do  lit- 
tle else  than  determine  special  cases.  This  is  less  true  of 


300  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

the  science  of  life  and  diseases.  This  is  a  mine  in  which 
priceless  and  unexplored  veins  are  yet  abundant.  Great 
triumphs  are  in  store  for  those  who  shall  have  skill  to  ex- 
tract that  metal  and  bring  it  into  circulation ;  but  such  labor 
demands  bold  enterprise  no  less  than  sagacious  diligence. 

There  are  diseases  which  have  their  seat  in  some  one 
of  the  viscera,  and  at  first  oppress  it  alone  with  suffering. 
Thus  the  lungs,  the  liver,  the  stomach,  the  brain,  may  be 
differently  affected.  Others  extend  to  a  whole  organic  sys- 
tem, as  the  nervous  or  muscular  system,  that  of  the  joints 
or  the  skin,  etc.  Others,  again,  seize  on  the  whole  vital 
frame,  and  to  these  is  given  the  name  of  general  disorders. 
It  is  as  to  these  that  we  have  least  acquaintance  with  the 
outward  causes  and  the  internal  derangements,  because 
both  have  hitherto  remained  beyond  the  reach  of  medical 
research.  Yet  we  may  affirm  that  the  blood,  which  bathes 
the  whole  organism  and  maintains  the  connection  between 
the  parts  in  it,  must  be  in  such  cases  the  chief  seat  of  mor- 
bid change.  Without  here  going  into  the  details  of  the  dis- 
tinctions set  up  by  pathologists  between  disorders  of  this 
nature,  it  will  suffice  to  say  that  they  have  classed  cholera 
among  the  infectious  diseases,  that  is,  among  diseases  oc- 
casioned by  poisons  that  have  their  origin  in  the  atmos- 
phere, as  the  yellow  fever,  the  plague,  typhus,  varioloid, 
typhoid  fever,  etc. 

Whatever  hypothesis  we  may  form  as  to  the  atmos- 
pheric origin  of  which  we  have  just  spoken,  it  is  clear  that 
these  diseases  affect  the  blood.  In  them  the  nourishing 
fluid  experiences  a  transformation,  not  merely  in  the  order 
and  proportion,  but  also  in  the  nature,  of  its  components, 
particularly  the  most  important  of  all,  the  albuminoid  mat- 
ter. The  latter,  which  is  the  essential  and  nutritive  part 
of  the  blood,  the  plastic  part,  to  which  the  exhausted  tis- 
sues owe  their  body  and  spring,  then  undergoes  a  deep 
change  in  the  inmost  parts  of  its  molecular  composition. 


GREAT  EPIDEMICS— ASIATIC   CHOLERA.  301 

It  not  only  suffers  a  marked  change  in  its  physical  appear- 
ance, but  it  loses  its  original  organic  properties.  •  It  becomes 
impotent  to  perform  the  part  of  restorer  which  is  imposed 
on  it.  Of  what  nature  is  this  corruption  of  the  albumen  ? 
We  cannot  say,  so  long  as  we  remain  ignorant  of  the 
nature  of  that  very  albumen  in  its  normal  state.  In  other 
words,  there  will  be  no  chance  to  begin  the  study  of  cor- 
ruptions of  the  blood  until  the  blood  of  man  in  sound  health 
shall  be  sufficiently  understood,  that  is,  until  we  shall  have 
established  the  nature  of  the  albuminoid  substances  with 
definite  chemical  exactness.  That,  for  the  moment,  is  the 
grand  desideratum  of  biology.  Chemistry  is  much  ad- 
vanced, physiology  is  developing;  that  which  remains 
stationary  is  the  region  of  questions  making  the  transition 
between  those  two  sciences,  and  the  answers  to  which, 
perhaps  of  little  importance  to  the  former,  would  be  the 
source  of  most  desirable  illumination  for  the  latter.  Nu- 
trition will  never  be  explained  until  we  shall  have  estab- 
lished exactly  the  formula  for  those  transformations  through 
which  food  passes  from  the  moment  it  is  dissolved  in  the 
stomach  until  the  moment  it  is  thrown  off  by  the  various 
emunctories  under  the  form  of  products  of  disassimilation. 
Such  an  explanation  would  not  only  give  the  key  to  those 
difficulties  in  physiology  which  still  hold  savants  in  check, 
but  would  also  be  of  very  great  service  in  the  knowledge 
of  diseases,  and,  to  return  to  our  direct  subject,  in  that  of 
infectious  diseases.  It  is  therefore  to  the  study  of  the  albu- 
minoid substances,  and  of  the  complex,  rapid,  and  infinite 
changes  which  they  undergo  in  the  blood,  that  capable  ex- 
aminers should  now  direct  their  attention.  Those  who  un- 
dertake it  will  not  deserve  the  censure  of  setting  out  on  a 
beaten  path,  for  they  will  have  every  thing  to  create,  be- 
ginning with  the  methods.  At  the  present  time  we  have 
never  yet  compared,  and  we  have  not  even  the  means  of 
comparing,  in  respect  to  the  molecular  elaboration  that  has 


302  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

taken  place  in  them,  two  specimens  of  blood  taken  at  two 
different  points  in  the  body.  When  we  shall  have  mastered 
the  composition  of  albumen,  and  when  we  shall  have  it  in 
our  power  to  make  the  comparison  just  alluded  to,  the 
problem  of  infectious  diseases  will  not  be  long  in  coming 
into  full  light,  and  the  cholera  will  be  no  more  a  dismal 
mystery. 


THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  DEATH. 

OP  old,  the  spoils  of  death  fell  to  the  anatomist's  share, 
while  the  physiologist  took  for  his  part  the  phenomena  of 
life.  Now  we  submit  the  corpse  to  the  same  experiments 
as  the  living  organism,  and  pry  into  the  relics  of  death  for 
the  secrets  of  life.  Instead  of  seeing  in  the  lifeless  body 
mere  forms  ready  to  dissolve  and  vanish,  we  detect  in  it 
forces  and  persisting  activities  full  of  deep  instructiveness 
in  their  mode  of  working.  As  theologians  and  moralists 
exhort  us  to  study  the  spectre  of  death  face  to  face  at 
times,  and  strengthen  our  souls  by  courageous  meditation 
on  our  last  hour,  so  medicine  regards  it  as  essential  to 
direct  our  attention  toward  all  the  details  of  that  mournful 
drama,  and  thus  to  lead  us,  through  gloom  and  shadows,  to 
a  clearer  knowledge  of  life.  But  it  is  only  with  respect  to 
medicine  in  the  most  modern  days  that  this  is  true. 

Leibnitz,  who  held  profound  and  admirable  theories  of 
life,  had  one  of  death  also,  which  he  has  unfolded  in  a  fa- 
mous letter  to  Arnauld.  He  believes  that  generation  is 
only  the  development  and  evolution  of  an  animal  already 
existing  in  form,  and  that  corruption  or  death  is  only  the 
ree'nvelopment  or  involution  of  the  same  animal,  which 
does  not  cease  to  subsist  and  continue  living.  The  sum  of 
vital  energies,  consubstantial  with  monads,  does  not  vary 
in  the  world  ;  generation  and  death  are  but  changes  in  the 
order  and  adjustment  of  the  principles  of  vitality,  sirnple 


304  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

transformations  from  small  to  great,  and  vice  versa.  In 
other  words,  Leibnitz  sees  everywhere  eternal  and  incor- 
ruptible germs  of  life,  which  neither  perish  at  all  nor  be- 
gin. What  does  begin  and  perish  is  the  organic  machine 
of  which  these  germs  compose  the  original  activity :  the 
elementary  gearing  of  the  machine  is  broken  apart,  but 
not  destroyed.  This  is  the  first  view  held  by  Leibnitz.  He 
has  another,  too,  conceiving  of  generation  as  a  progress  of 
life  through  degrees ;  he  can  conceive  of  death  also  as  a 
gradual  regress  of  the  same  principle,  that  is  to  say,  that 
in  death  life  withdraws  little  by  little,  just  as  it  came  for- 
ward little  by  little  in  generation.  Death  is  no  sudden 
phenomenon,  nor  instantaneous  evanishing — it  is  a  slow 
operation,  a  "  retrogradation,"  as  the  Hanoverian  philoso- 
pher phrases  it.  When  death  shows  to  us,  it  has  been  a 
long  time  wearing  away  the  organism,  though  we  have  not 
perceived  it,  because  "  dissolution  at  first  attacks  parts  in- 
visibly small."  Yes,  death,  before  it  betrays  itself  to  the 
eye  by  livid  pallor,  to  the  touch  by  marble  coldness,  before 
chaining  the  movements  and  stiffening  the  blood  of  the 
dying  person,  creeps  with  insidious  secrecy  into  the  small- 
est and  most  hidden  points  of  his  organs  and  his  humors. 
Here  it  begins  to  corrupt  the  fluids,  to  disorganize  the 
tissues,  to  destroy  the  equipoise  and  endanger  the  harmony. 
This  process  is  more  or  less  lingering  and  deceitful,  and, 
when  we  note  the  manifest  signs  of  death,  we  may  be  sure 
that  the  work  lacked  no  deliberate  preparation. 

These  ideas  of  Leibnitz,  like  most  of  the  conceptions 
of  genius,  waited  long  after  the  time  of  their  appearance 
for  confirmation  by  demonstrative  experiment.  Before  his 
day,  bodies  were  dissected  only  for  the  sake  of  studying 
in  them  the  conformation  and  normal  arrangement  of  the 
organs.  When  this  study  was  once  completed,  science 
took  up  the  methodical  inquiry  into  the  changes  produced 
in  the  different  parts  of  the  body  by  diseases.  Not  until 


THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OP  DEATH.  3Q5 

the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  did  death  in  action  be- 
come the  subject  of  investigation  by  Bichat;. 

Bichat  is  the  greatest  of  the  physiological  historians  of 
death.  The  famous  work  he  has  left  on  this  subject,  his 
"  Physiological  Researches  upon  Life  and  Death,"  is  as 
noteworthy  for  the  grandeur  of  its  general  ideas,  and  its 
beauty  of  style,  as  for  its  precision  of  facts  and  nicety  of 
experiment.  To  this  day  it  remains  the  richest  mine  of  re- 
corded truths  as  to  the  physiology  of  death.  Having  de- 
termined the  fact  that  life  is  seriously  endangered  only  by 
alterations  in  one  of  the  three  essential  organs,  the  brain, 
the  heart,  and  the  lungs,  a  group  forming  the  vital  tripod, 
Bichat  examines  how  the  death  of  one  of  these  three  or- 
gans assures  that  of  the  others,  and  in  succession  the 
gradual  stoppage  of  all  the  functions.  In  our  day,  the  ad- 
vance of  experimental  physiology  in  the  path  so  success- 
fully traversed  by  Bichat,  has  brought  to  light  in  their  mi- 
nutest details  the  various  mechanical  processes  of  death, 
and,  what  is  of  far  greater  consequence,  has  disclosed  an 
entire  order  of  activities  heretofore  only  suspected  to  be  at 
work  in  the  corpse.  The  theory  of  death  has  been  built 
up  by  slow  degrees  along  with  that  of  life,  and  several 
practical  questions  that  had  remained  in  a  state  of  uncer- 
tainty, such  as  that  of  the  signs  of  real  death,  have  re- 
ceived the  most  decisive  answer  in  the  course  of  these  re- 
searches. 

I. 

Bichat  pointed  out  that  the  complete  life  of  animals  is 
made  up  of  two  orders  of  phenomena,  those  of  circulation 
and  nutrition,  and  those  that  fix  the  relations  of  the  living 
being  with  its  environment.  He  distinguishes  organic  life 
from  animal  life,  properly  so  called.  Vegetables  have  only 
the  former;  animals  possess  both,  intimately  blended. 
Now,  on  the  occurrence  of  death,  these  two  sorts  of  life  do 
not  disappear  at  one  and  the  same  moment.  It  is  the  ani- 


306  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

mal  life  that  suffers  the  first  stroke ;  the  most  manifest  ac- 
tivities of  the  nervous  system  are  those  which  come  to  a 
halt  before  all  the  rest.  How  is  this  stoppage  brought 
about  ?  We  must  consider  separately  the  order  of  occur- 
rences in  death  from  old  age,  in  that  occasioned  by  disease, 
and  in  sudden  death. 

The  man  who  expires  at  the  close  of  a  long  decline  in 
years,  dies  in  detail.  All  his  senses  in  succession  are 
sealed.  Sight  becomes  dim  and  unsteady,  and  at  last  loses 
the  picture  of  objects.  Hearing  grows  gradually  insensi- 
ble to  sounds ;  touch  is  blunted  into  dullness ;  odors  pro- 
duce but  a  weak  impression ;  only  taste  lingers  a  little. 
At  the  same  time  that  the  organs  of  sensation  waste  and 
lose  their  excitability,  the  functions  of  the  brain  fade  out 
little  by  little.  Imagination  becomes  unfixed,  memory 
nearly  fails,  judgment  wavers.  Further,  motions  are  slow 
and  difficult  on  account  of  stiffness  in  the  muscles;  the 
voice  breaks ;  in  short,  all  the  functions  of  outward  life 
lose  their  spring.  Each  of  the  bonds  attaching  the  old 
man  to  existence  parts  by  slow  degrees.  Yet  the  internal 
life  persists.  Nutrition  still  takes  place,  but  very  soon  the 
forces  desert  the  most  essential  organs.  Digestion  lan- 
guishes, the  secretions  dry  up,  capillary  circulation  is 
clogged,  that  of  the  large  vessels  in  their  turn  is  checked, 
and,  at  last,  the  heart's  contractions  cease.  This  is  the  in- 
stant of  death.  The  heart  is  the  last  ihing  to  die.  Such 
is  the  series  of  slow  and  partial  deaths  which,  with  the  old 
man  spared  by  disease,  result  in  the  last  end  of  all.  The 
individual  who  falls  into  the  sleep  of  eternity  in  these  con- 
ditions, dies  like  the  vegetable  which,  having  no  conscious- 
ness of  life,  can  have  no  consciousness  of  death.  He 
passes  insensibly  from  one  to  the  other,  and  to  die  thus  is 
to  know  no  pain.  The  thought  of  the  last  hour  alarms  us 
only  because  it  puts  a  sudden  end  to  our  relations  with  all 
our  surroundings ;  but,  if  the  feeling  of  these  relations  has 


THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  DEATH.  307 

long  ago  faded  away,  there  can  be  no  place  for  fear  at  the 
brink  of  the  grave.  The  animal  does  not'  tremble  in  the 
instant  before  it  ceases  to  be. 

Unfortunately,  death  of  this  kind  is  very  rare  for  hu- 
manity. Death  from  old  age  has  become  an  extraordinary 
phenomenon.  Most  commonly  we  succumb  to  a  disturb- 
ance in  the  functions  of  our  vital  system,  which  is  some- 
times sudden,  sometimes  gradual.  In  this  case,  as  in  the 
former  one,  we  observe  animal  life  disappearing  first,  but 
the  modes  of  its  conclusion  are  infinitely  varied.1  One  of 
the  most  usual  is  death  through  the  lungs ;  as  a  result  of 
pneumonia  and  different  forms  of  phthisis,  the  oxidation  of 
the  blood  becoming  impossible  on  account  of  the  disor- 
ganization of  the  pulmonary  globules,  venous  blood  goes 
back  to  the  heart  without  gaining  revivification.  In  the 
case  of  serious  and  prolonged  fevers,  and  of  infectious 
diseases,  whether  epidemic  or  otherwise,  which  are,  charac- 
teristically, blood-poisonings,  death  occurs  through  a  gen- 
eral change  in  nutrition.  This  is  still  more  the  fact  as  to 
death  consequent  upon  certain  chronic  disorders  of  the  di- 
gestive organs.  When  these  are  affected,  the  secretion  of 
those  juices  fitted  to  dissolve  food  dries  up,  and  these  fluids 
go  through  the  intestinal  canal  unemployed.  In  this  case 
the  invalid  dies  of  real  starvation.  Haemorrhage  is  one  of 
the  commonest  causes  of  death.  Whenever  a  great  artery 
is  opened  from  any  cause,  permitting  the  copious  outflow 
of  blood,  the  skin  grows  pale,  warmth  declines,  the  breath- 
ing is  intermittent,  vertigo  and  dimness  of  sight  follow, 
the  expression  of  the  features  changes,  cold  and  clammy 
sweat  covers  part  of  the  face  and  the  limbs,  the  pulse  gets 
gradually  weaker,  and,  at  last,  the  heart  stops.  Virgil  de- 
scribes haemorrhage  with  striking  fidelity  in  the  story  of 
Dido's  death. 

1  Mille  modis  morimur  raortales,  nascimur  una.    Una  via  est  vitae, 
moriendi  mille  figurse. 


308  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

Sudden  death,  unconnected  with  outward  and  acci- 
dental causes,  may  occur  in  various  ways.  Very  violent 
impressions  on  the  feelings  sometimes  abruptly  check  the 
movements  of  the  heart,  and  produce  a  mortal  swoon.  In- 
stances are  well  known  of  many  persons  dying  of  joy — Leo 
X.  is  one — and  of  persons  who  succumbed  to  fear.  In 
foudroyant  apoplexy,  if  real  death  is  not  instantaneous, 
there  is  at  least  the  sudden  occurrence  of  the  phenomena 
of  death.  The  sufferer  is  plunged  in  profound  sleep,  called 
by  physicians  coma,  from  which  wakening  is  impossible ; 
his  breathing  is  difficult,  his  eyes  set,  his  mouth  twisted 
and  distorted.  The  pulsations  of  the  heart  cease  little  by 
little,  and  soon  life  utterly  vanishes.  The  breaking  of  an 
aneurism  very  often  occasions  sudden  death.  Not  less 
often  the  cause  of  death  is  found  in  what  is  called  embo- 
lism, that  is,  a  check  to  the  circulation  by  a  clot  of  blood 
suddenly  plugging  up  some  important  vessel.  And  there 
are  also  cases  of  sudden  death  still  unaccounted  for,  in  the 
sense  that  subsequent  dissection  discovers  nothing  that 
could  explain  the  stoppage  in  the  operations  of  life. 

Death  is  usually  preceded  by  a  group  of  phenomena 
that  has  received  the  name  of  the  death-agony.  In  most 
cases  of  disease  the  beginning  of  this  concluding  period 
is  marked  by  a  sudden  improvement  of  the  functions.  It 
is  the  last  gleam  springing  from  the  dying  flame  ;  but  soon 
the  eyes  become  fixed  and  insensible  to  the  action  of  light, 
the  nose  grows  pointed  and  cold,  the  mouth,  wide  open, 
seems  to  call  for  the  air  that  fails  it,  the  cavity  within  it 
is  parched,  and  the  lips,  as  if  withered,  cling  to  the  curves 
of  the  teeth.  The  last  movements  of  respiration  are  spas- 
modic, and  a  wheezing,  and  sometimes  a  marked  gurgling 
sound,  may  be  heard  at  some  distance,  caused  by  obstruc- 
tion of  the  bronchial  tubes  with  a  quantity  of  mucus.  The 
breath  is  cold,  the  temperature  of  the  skin  lowerecL  If 
the  heart  is  examined,  we  note  the  weakening  of  its  sounds 


THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  DEATH.  309 

and  pulsations.  The  hand,  placed  in  its  neighborhood,  feels 
no  throb.  Such  is  the  physiognomy  of  a  person  in  the  last 
moments  of  death  in  the  greater  number  of  cases,  that  is, 
when  death  follows  upon  a  period  of  illness  of  some  dura- 
tion. The  death-struggle  is  seldom  painful,  and  almost 
always  the  patient  feels  nothing  of  it.  He  is  plunged  into 
a  comatose  stupor,  so  that  he  is  no  longer  conscious  of  his 
situation  or  his  sufferings,  and  he  passes  insensibly  from 
life  to  death,  in  a  manner  that  renders  it  sometimes  difficult 
to  fix  the  exact  instant  at  which  a  dying  person  expires. 
This  is  true,  at  least,  in  chronic  maladies,  and  especially 
in  those  that  consume  the  human  body  slowly  and  silently. 
Yet,  when  the  hour  of  death  comes  for  ardent  organiza- 
tions— for  great  artists,  for  instance,  and  they  usually  die 
young — there  is  a  quick  and  sublime  new  burst  of  life  in 
the  creative  genius.  There  is  no  better  example  of  this 
than  the  angelic  end  of  Beethoven,  who,  before  he  breathed 
out  his  soul,  that  tuneful  monad,  regained  his  lost  speech 
and  hearing,  and  spent  them  in  repeating  for  the  last  time 
some  of  those  sweet  harmonies  which  he  called  his  "  Prayers 
to  God."  Some  diseases,  moreover,  are  most  peculiarly 
marked  by  the  gentleness  of  the  dying  agony.  Of  all  the 
ills  that  cheat  us  while  killing  by  pin-pricks,  consumption 
is  that  which  longest  wears  for  us  the  illusive  look  of  health, 
and  best  conceals  the  misery  of  living  and  the  horror  of 
dying.  Nothing  can  be  compared  with  that  hallucination 
of  the  senses  and  that  liveliness  of  hope  which  mark  the 
last  days  of  the  consumptive.  He  takes  the  burning  of  his 
destroying  fever  for  a  healthful  symptom,  he  forms  his 
plans,  and  smiles  calmly  and  cheerfully  on  his  friends,  and 
suddenly,  some  morrow  of  a  quiet  night,  he  falls  into  the 
sleep  that  never  wakes. 

If  life  is  everywhere,  and  if,  consequently,  death  occurs 
everywhere,  in  all  the  elements  of  the  system,  what  must  be 
thought  of  that  point  in  the  spinal  marrow  which  a  famous 


310  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

physiologist  styled  the  vital  knot,  and  in  which  he  professed 
to  lodge  the  principle  of  life  itself  ?  The  point  which  Flou- 
rens  regarded  as  this  vital  knot  is  situated  nearly  at  the 
middle  of  the  prolonged  spinal  cord — that  is,  the  middle 
of  that  portion  of  the  nerve-substance  which  connects  the 
brain  with  the  spinal  marrow.  This  region,  in  fact,  has  a 
fine  and  dangerous  excitability.  A  prick,  or  the  penetra- 
tion of  a  needle  into  it,  is  enough  to  cause  the  instant  death 
of  any  animal  whatever.  It  is  the  very  means  used  in 
physiological  laboratories  to  destroy  life  swiftly  and  surely 
in  dogs.  That  susceptibility  is  explained  in  the  most  nat- 
ural way.  This  spot  is  the  starting-point  of  the  nerves 
that  go  to  the  lungs  ;  the  moment  that  the  slightest  injury 
is  produced  in  it,  there  follows  a  check  on  the  movements 
of  respiration,  and  ensuing  death.  This  vital  knot  of  Flou- 
rens  enjoys  no  sort  of  special  prerogative.  Life  is  not 
more  concentrated  nor  more  essential  in  it  than  elsewhere ; 
it  simply  coincides  with  the  initial  point  of  the  nerves  ani- 
mating one  of  the  organs  indispensable  to  vitality,  the  or- 
gan of  sanguification ;  and  in  living  organisms  any  altera- 
tion of  the  nerves  controlling  a  function  brings  a  serious 
risk  as  to  its  complete  performance.  There  is,  therefore, 
no  such  thing  as  a  vital  knot,  a  central  fire  of  life,  in  ani- 
mals. They  are  collections  of  an  infinity  of  infinitely  small 
living  creatures,  and  each  one  of  these  microscopic  living 
points  is  its  own  life-centre  for  itself.  Each  on  its  own 
account  grows,  produces  heat,  and  displays  those  charac- 
teristic activities  which  depend  upon  its  structure.  Each 
one,  by  virtue  of  a  preestablished  harmony,  meets  all  the 
rest  in  the  ways  that  they  require  ;  but,  just  as  each  lives 
on  its  own  account,  so  on  its  account  each  dies.  And  the 
proof  that  this  is  so  is  found  in  the  fact  that  certain  parts 
taken  from  a  dead  body  can  be  transferred  to  a  living  one 
without  suffering  any  interruption  in  their  physiological 
activity,  and  in  the  fact  that  many  organs  which  seem  dead 


THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  DEATH.  3H 

can  be  excited  anew,  awakened  out  of  their  torpor,  and 
animated  to  extremely  remarkable  vital .  manifestations. 
This  subject  we  now  proceed  to  consider. 

II. 

Death  seems  to  be  absolute  from  the  instant  that  the 
pulsations  of  the  heart  are  stopped  without  renewal,  be- 
cause, the  circulation  of  the  blood  no  longer  proceeding, 
the  nutrition  of  the  organs  becomes  impossible,  and  nutri- 
tion is  demanded  for  the  maintenance  of  physiological  har- 
mony ;  but,  as  we  have  said  above,  there  are  a  thousand 
little  springs  in  the  organism  which  keep  up  a  certain  de- 
gree of  activity  after  the  great  main-spring  has  ceased  to 
act.  There  is  an  infinite  number  of  partial  energies  that 
outlive  the  destruction  of  the  principal  energy,  and  with- 
draw only  by  slow  degrees.  In  cases  of  sudden  death 
especially  the  tissues  keep  their  peculiar  vitality  a  very 
long  time.  In  the  first  place,  the  heat  declines  only  quite 
slowly,  and  the  more  so  in  proportion  as  death  has  been 
quick.  For  several  hours  after  death  the  hair  of  the  head 
and  body,  and  the  nails,  continue  to  grow,  nor  does  ab- 
sorption either  stop  at  once.  Even  digestion,  too,  keeps 
on.  The  experiment  performed  by  Spallanzani  to  test  this 
is  very  curious.  He  conceived  the  idea  of  making  a  crow 
eat  a  certain  quantity  of  food,  and  killing  it  immediately 
after  the  meal.  Then  he  put  it  in  a  place  kept  at  the  same 
temperature  as  that  of  -a  live  bird,  and  opened  it  six  hours 
later.  The  food  was  thoroughly  digested. 

Besides  these  general  manifestations,  the  dead  body  is 
capable,  during  some  continued  time,  of  different  kinds  of 
activity.  It  is  not  easy  to  study  these  on  the  bodies  of 
persons  dying  of  sickness,  because  they  are  not  permitted 
to  be  made  the  subject  of  anatomical  examinations  until 
twenty-four  hours  after  death ;  but  the  bodies  of  beheaded 
criminals,  which  are  given  up  to  savants  a  few  moments 


312  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

after  their  execution,  can  be  of  use  in  the  investigation  of 
what  takes  place  immediately  after  the  stopping  of  the 
living  machine.  If  the  heart  is  uncovered  a  few  minutes 
after  execution,  pulsations  are  remarked  which  continue 
during  an  hour  or  longer,  at  the  rate  of  forty  to  forty-five 
a  minute,  even  after  the  removal  of  the  liver,  the  stomach, 
and  the  intestines.  For  several  hours  the  muscles  retain 
their  excitability,  and  undergo  reflex  contractions  from  the 
effect  of  pinching.  Robin  noted  the  following  phenomenon 
in  the  case  of  a  criminal  an  hour  after  his  execution  :  "  The 
right  arm,"  to  quote  his  description,  "  being  placed  ob- 
liquely extended  at  the  side  of  the  trunk,  with  the  hand 
about  ten  inches  away  from  the  hip,  I  scratched  the  skin 
of  the  chest,  at  about  the  height  of  the  nipple,  with  the 
point  of  a  scalpel,  over  a  space  of  nearly  four  inches,  with- 
out making  any  pressure  on  the  muscles  lying  beneath. 
We  immediately  saw  the  great  pectoral  muscle,  then  the 
biceps,  then  the  anterior  brachial,  successively  and  quickly 
contract.  The  result  was  a  movement  of  approach  of  the 
whole  arm  toward  the  trunk,  with  rotation  inward  of  the 
limb,  and  half  flexion  of  the  forearm  upon  the  arm,  a  true 
defensive  movement,  which  threw  the  hand  forward  toward 
the  chest  as  far  as  the  pit  of  the  stomach." 

These  spontaneous  exhibitions  of  life  in  a  corpse  are 
trifles  compared  with  those  excited  by  means  of  certain 
stimulants,  particularly  of  electricity.  Aldini,  in  1802, 
subjected  two  criminals,  beheaded  at  Bologna,  to  the  action 
of  a  powerful  battery.  Influenced  by  the  current,  the 
facial  muscles  contracted,  producing  the  effect  of  horrid 
grimaces.  All  the  limbs  were  seized  with  convulsive 
movements ;  the  bodies  seemed  to  feel  the  stir  of  resur- 
rection, and  to  make  efforts  to  rise.  The  springs  of  the 
system  retained  the  power  of  answering  the  electric  stimu- 
lus for  several  hours  after  beheading.  A  few  years  later, 
at  Glasgow,  Ure  made  some  equally  noted  experiments  on 


THE  PHYSIOLOGY   OF  DEATH.  313 

the  body  of  a  criminal  that  had  remained  more  than  an  hour 
hanging  on  the  gallows.  One  of  the  poles  of  a  battery  of 
seven  hundred  pairs  having  been  connected  with  the  spinal 
marrow  below  the  nape  of  the  neck,  and  the  other  brought 
in  contact  with  the  heel,  the  leg,  before  bent  back  on  itself, 
was  thrust  violently  forward,  almost  throwing  down  one  of 
the  assistants,  who  had  hard  work  to  keep  it  in  place. 
When  one  of  the  poles  was  placed  on  the  seventh  rib,  and 
the  other  on  one  of  the  nerves  of  the  neck,  the  chest  rose 
and  fell,  and  the  abdomen  repeated  the  like  movement,  as 
takes  place  in  respiration.  On  touching  a  nerve  of  the 
eyebrow  at  the  same  time  with  the  head,  the  facial  muscles 
contracted.  "  Wrath,  terror,  despair,  anguish,  and  fright- 
ful grins,  blended  in  horrible  expression  on  the  assassin's 
countenance." 

The  most  remarkable  instance  of  a  momentary  reappear- 
ance of  vital  properties,  not  in  the  whole  organism,  but  in 
the  head  alone,  is  {he  famous  experiment  suggested  by 
Legallois,  and  carried  out  for  the  first  time  in  1858  by 
Brown-Sequard.  This  skillful  physiologist  beheads  a  dog, 
taking  pains  to  make  the  section  below  the  point  at  which 
the  vertebral  arteries  enter  their  bony  sheath.  Ten  min- 
utes afterward  he  sends  the  galvanic  current  into  the  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  head  thus  severed  from  its  body,  with- 
out producing  any  result  of  movement.  He  then  fits  to 
the  four  arteries,  the  extremities  of  which  appear  in  the 
cutting  of  the  neck,  little  pipes  connected  by  tubes  with  a 
reservoir  full  of  fresh  oxygenated  blood,  and  guides  the  in- 
jection of  this  blood  into  the  vessels  of  the  brain.  Imme- 
diately irregular  motions  of  the  eyes  and  the  facial  mus- 
cles occur,  succeeded  by  the  appearance  of  regular  harmo- 
nious contractions,  seeming  to  be  prompted  by  the  will. 
The  head  has  regained  life.  The  motions  continue  to  be 
performed  during  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  while  the  injection 
of  blood  into  the  cerebral  arteries  lasts.  On  stopping  the 


/  314  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

injection,  the  motions  cease,  and  give  place  to  the  spasms 
of  agony,  and  then  to  death. 

Physiologists  asked  whether  such  a  momentary  resur- 
rection of  the  functions  of  life  might  not  be  brought  about 
in  the  human  subject — that  is,  whether  movement  might 
not  be  excited  and  expression  reanimated  by  injecting  fresh 
blood  into  a  head  just  severed  from  a  man's  body,  as  in 
Brown-Se'quard's  experiment.  It  was  suggested  to  try  it 
on  the  heads  of  decapitated  criminals,  but  anatomical  obser- 
vations, particularly  those  of  Charles  Robin,  showed  that 
the  arteries  of  the  neck  are  cut  by  the  guillotine  in  such  a 
way  that  air  penetrates  and  fills  them.  It  follows  that  it 
is  impracticable  to  inject  them  with  blood  that  can  produce 
the  effects  noted  by  Brown-Sequard.  Indeed,  we  know 
that  blood  circulating  in  the  vessels  becomes  frothy  on  con- 
tact with  air,  and  loses  fitness  for  its  functions.  Robin 
supposes  that  the  experiment  in  question  could  be  success- 
ful only  if  made  upon  the  head  of  a  m*an  killed  by  a  ball 
that  should  strike  below  the  neck ;  in  that  case  it  would  be 
possible  to  effect  such  a  section  of  the  arteries  that  no  en- 
trance of  air  would  occur,  and,  if  the  head  were  separated 
at  the  place  pointed  out  by  Brown-S6quard,  those  mani- 
festations of  function  remarked  in  the  dog's  head  would 
probably  be  obtained  by  the  injection  of  oxygenated  blood. 
Brown-S6quard  is  convinced  that  they  might  be  obtained, 
if  certain  precautions  were  observed,  even  with  the  head 
of  a  decapitated  criminal ;  and  so  strong  is  his  conviction 
that,  when  it  was  proposed  to  him  to  try  the  experiment — 
that  is,  to  perform  the  injection  of  blood  into  the  head  of  a 
person  executed — he  refused  to  do  so,  not  choosing,  as  he 
said,  to  witness  the  tortures  of  this  fragment  of  a  being  re- 
called for  an  instant  to  sensibility  and  life.  We  under- 
stand Brown-Sequard's  scruples,  but  it  is  allowable  to 
doubt  whether  he  would  have  inflicted  great  suffering  on  the 
head  of  the  subject ;  at  most,  he  would  only  have  aroused  in 


THE  PHYSIOLOGY   OF  DEATH.  315 

it  a  degree  of  very  dim  and  uncertain  sensibility.  This  is  easi- 
ly explained.  In  life,  the  slightest  perturbation  in  the  cere- 
bral circulation  is  enough  to  prevent  thought  and  sensation 
utterly.  Now,  if  a  few  drops  of  blood  too  much  or  too  little 
in  the  brain  of  an  animal  in  full  health  suffice  to  alter  the 
regularity  of  its  psychical  manifestations,  much  more  cer- 
tainly will  the  completeness  of  the  brain's  action  be  de- 
ranged if  it  is  awakened  by  an  injection  of  foreign  blood,  a 
forcible  ingress  too,  which,  of  necessity,  cannot  cause  the 
blood  to  circulate  with  suitable  pressure  and  equipoise. 

Corpse-like  rigidity  is  one  of  the  most  characteristic 
phenomena  of  death.  This  is  a  general  hardening  of  the 
muscles,  so  great  that  they  lose  the  property  of  extension 
till  even  the  joints  cannot  be  bent ;  this  phenomenon  begins 
some  hours  after  death.  The  muscles  of  the  lower  jaw  are 
the  first  to  stiffen ;  then  rigidity  invades  in  succession  the 
abdominal  muscles,  those  of  the  neck,  and  at  last  the  tho- 
racic ones.  This  hardening  takes  place  through  the  coagu- 
lation of  the  half-fluid  albuminoid  matter  which  composes 
the  muscular  fibres,  as  the  solidification  of  the  blood  results 
from  coagulation  of  its  fibrine.  After  a  few  hours  the 
coagulated  musculine  grows  fluid  again,  rigidity  passes 
away,  and  the  muscles  relax.  Something  not  dissimilar 
takes  place  also  in  the  blcod.  The  globules  change,  lose 
shape,  and  suffer  the  beginning  of  dissociation.  The  agents 
of  putrefaction,  vibrios  and  bacteria,  thus  enter  upon  their 
great  work  by  insidiously  breaking  up  the  least  seen 
parts. 

At  last,  when  partial  revivals  are  no  longer  possible, 
when  the  last  flicker  of  life  has  gone  out  and  corpse-like 
rigidity  has  ceased,  a  new  work  begins.  The  living  germs 
that  had  collected  on  the  surface  of  the  body  and  in  the 
digestive  canal  develop,  multiply,  pierce  into  all  the  points 
of  the  organism,  and  produce  in  it  a  complete  separation 
of  the  tissues  and  humors ;  this  is  putrefaction.  The  mo- 


316  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

ment  of  its  appearance  varies  with  the  causes  of  death  and 
the  degree  of  outward  temperature.  When  death  is  the 
result  of  a  putrid  malady,  putrefaction  begins  almost  im- 
mediately when  the  body  has  grown  cold.  It  is  the  same 
when  the  atmosphere  is  warm.1  In  general,  in  our  cli- 
mates, the  work  of  decomposition  becomes  evident  after 
from  thirty-eight  to  forty  hours.  Its  first  effects  are 
noticeable  on  the  skin  of  the  stomach;  this  takes  on  a 
greenish  discoloration,  which  soon  spreads  and  covers  suc- 
cessively the  whole  surface  of  the  body.  At  the  same 
time  the  moist  parts,  the  eye,  the  inside  of  the  mouth, 
soften  and  decay ;  then  the  cadaverous  odor  is  gradually 
developed,  at  first  faint  and  slightly  fetid,  a  mouldy  smell, 
then  a  pungent  and  ammoniacal  stench.  Little  by  little 
the  flesh  sinks  in»and  grows  watery;  the  organs  cease  to 
be  distinguishable.  Every  thing  is  seized  upon  by  what  is 
termed  putridity.  If  the  tissues  are  examined  under  the 
microscope  at  this  moment,  we  no  longer  recognize  any  of 
the  anatomical  elements  of  which  the  organic  fabric  is  made 
up  in  its  normal  state.  "  Our  flesh,"  Bossuet  exclaims  in 
his  funeral-sermon  on  Henrietta  of  England,  u  soon  changes 
its  nature,  our  body  takes  another  name ;  even  that  of  a 
corpse,  used  because  it  still  exhibits  something  of  the 
human  figure,  does  not  long  remain  with  it.  It  becomes  a 
thing  without  a  shape,  which  in  every  language  is  without 
a  name."  When  structure  has  wholly  disappeared,  nothing 
more  remains  but  a  mixture  of  saline,  fat,  and  proteic  mat- 
ters, which  are  either  dissolved  and  carried  away  by  water, 
or  slowly  burned  up  by  the  air's  oxygen,  and  transmuted 
into  new  products,  and  the  whole  substance  of  the  body, 
except  the  skeleton,  returns  piecemeal  to  the  earth  whence 
it  came  forth.  Thus  the  ingredients  of  our  organs,  the 

1  Yet  a  very  high  temperature  acts  as  cold  does  in  delaying  the  mo- 
ment of  putrefaction  by  so  coagulating  the  albuminoid  matters  as  to 
make  them  less  liable  to  decay. 


THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  DEATH.         317 

chemical  elements  of  our  bodies,  turn  to  mud  and  dust 
again.  From  this  mud  and  this  dust  issue  unceasingly 
new  life  and  energetic  activity  ;  but  a  clay  fit  for  the  com- 
monest uses  may  also  be  got  from  it,  and,  in  the  words  of 
Shakespeare's  Hamlet^  the  dust  of  Alexander  or  Cassar  may 
plug  the  vent  of  a  beer-cask,  or  "  stop  a  hole  to  keep  the 
wind  away."  These  "  base  uses,"  of  which  the  Prince  of 
Denmark  speaks  to  Horatio^  mark  the  extreme  limits  of 
the  transformation  of  matter.  In  any  case,  the  beings  of 
lowest  order  that  toil  and  engender  in  the  bosom  of  putre- 
faction are  really  absorbing  and  storing  away  life,  since 
without  their  aid  the  corpse  could  not  serve  as  nutriment  to 
plants,  which  in  their  turn  are  the  necessary  reservoir 
whence  animality  draws  its  sap  and  strength.  It  is  in 
this  sense  that  Buffon's  doctrine  of  organic  molecules  is  a 
true  one. 

Death  is  the  necessary  end  of  all  organic  existence. 
We  may  hope  more  or  less  to  set  at  a  distance  its  inevita- 
ble hour,  but  it  would  be  madness  to  dream  of  its  indefi- 
nite postponement  in  any  species  whatsoever.  No  doubt 
there  is  no  contradiction  in  conceiving  of  a  perfect  equilib- 
rium between  assimilation  and  disassimilation,  such  that 
the  system  would  be  maintained  in  immortal  health.  In 
any  case,  no  one  has  yet  even  gained  a  glimpse  of  the 
modes  of  realizing  such  an  equilibrium,  and  death  con- 
tinues, till  further  orders,  a  fixed  law  of  Fate.  Still, 
though  immortality  for  a  complete  organism  seems  chi- 
merical, perhaps  it  is  not  the  sense  with  the  immortality  of 
a  separate  organ  in  the  sense  we  now  explain.  We  have 
already  alluded  to  the  experiments  of  Paul  Bert  on  animal- 
grafting.  He  has  proved  that,  on  the  head  of  a  rat,  cer- 
tain organs  of  the  same  animal — as  the  tail,  for  instance — 
may  be  grafted.  And  this  physiologist  asks  himself  the 
question,  whether  it  would  not  be  possible,  when  a  rat  pro- 
vided with  such  an  appendage  draws  near  the  close  of  his 


318  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

existence,  to  remove  the  appendage  from  him,  and  trans- 
plant it  to  a  young  animal,  which  in  his  turn  would  be  de- 
prived of  the  ornament  in  the  same  way  in  his  old  age  in 
favor  of  some  specimen  of  a  new  generation,  and  so  on  in 
succession.  This  tail,  transplanted  in  regular  course  to 
young  animals,  and  imbibing  at  each  transference  blood 
full  of  vitality,  perpetually  renewed,  yet  ever  remaining 
the  same,  would  thus  escape  death.  The  experiment,  deli- 
cate and  difficult,  as  we  well  see,  was  yet  undertaken  by 
Bert,  but  circumstances  did  not  allow  it  to  be  prolonged 
for  any  considerable  time,  and  the  fact  of  the  perpetuity  of 
an  organ,  periodically  rejuvenated,  remains  to  be  demon- 
strated. 

III. 

Real  death,  then,  is  characterized  by  the  positive  ceas- 
ing of  vital  properties  and  functions  both  in  the  organic  or 
vegetative  life,  and  in  the  animal  life,  properly  so  termed. 
When  animal  life  disappears  without  any  interruption  oc- 
curring in  organic  life,  the  system  is  in  a  state  of  seeming 
death.  In  this  state  the  body  is  possessed  by  profound 
sleep  quite  similar  to  that  of  hibernating  animals  ;  all  the 
usual  expressions  and  all  signs  of  internal  activity  have 
disappeared,  and  give  place  to  invincible  torpor.  The  most 
powerful  chemical  stimulants  exert  no  control  over  the  or- 
gans, the  walls  of  the  chest  are  motionless ;  in  short,  see- 
ing the  body  presenting  this  appearance,  it  is  impossible 
not  to  think  of  it  as  dead.  There  are  quite  numerous 
states  of  the  organism  which  may  thus  imitate  death  more 
or  less  closely ;  the  commonest  one  is  that  of  fainting.  In 
this  case  neither  sensation  nor  movements  of  circulation  or 
respiration  are  any  longer  perceptible;  the  warmth  is 
lowered,  the  skin  pallid  and  colorless.  Instances  of  hys- 
teria are  cited  in  which  the  attack  has  been  prolonged  for 
several  days,  attended  with  fainting.  In  this  strange  con- 


THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  DEATH.  319 

dition  all  physiological  manifestations  remain  suspended  ; 
yet  they  are  not,  as  it  was  long  supposed, 'suspended  abso- 
lutely. Bouchut  has  proved  that,  in  the  gravest  cases  of 
fainting,  the  pulsations  of  the  heart  continue,  weaker  and 
rarer,  and  harder  to  be  heard  than  in  normal  life,  but 
clearljT  distinguishable  when  the  ear  is  laid  on  the  precor- 
dial  region.  On  the  other  hand,  the  muscles  retain  their 
suppleness  and  the  limbs  their  pliability. 

Asphyxia,  which  properly  is  suspension  of  breathing, 
and  consequently  of  the  blood's  revivification,  sometimes 
passes  into  a  serious  fainting  condition  followed  by  seem- 
ing death,  from  which  the  sufferer  recovers  after  a  period 
of  varying  length.  This  state  may  be  induced  either  by 
drowning  or  by  inhaling  gas  unfit  for  respiration,  such  as 
carbonic  acid  in  deep  wells,  emanations  from  latrines,  or  the 
choke-damp  of  mines,  or  by  suffocation.  In  1650  a  woman 
named  Ann  Green  was  hanged  at  Oxford.  She  had  been 
hanging  for  half  an  hour,  and  several  people,  to  shorten  her 
sufferings,  had  pulled  her  by  the  feet  with  all  their  strength. 
After  she  was  placed  in  her  coffin  it  was  observed  that  she 
still  breathed.  The  executioner's  assistants  attempted  to 
end  her  existence,  but,  thanks  to  the  help  of  physicians, 
she  came  back  to  life,  and  continued  to  live  some  time  after- 
ward. Drowning  occasions  an  equally  deep  insensibility, 
during  which,  very  singularly,  the  psychical  faculties  re- 
tain some  degree  of  activity.  Sailors,  after  timely  resusci- 
tation from  drowning,  declare  that,  while  under  water,  they 
had  returned  in  thought  to  their  families,  and  sadly  fancied 
the  grief  about  to  be  caused  by  their  death.  After  a  few 
minutes  of  physical  rest,  they  suffered  violent  colic  of  the 
heart,  which  seemed  to  twist  itself  about  in  their  chests  ; 
afterward  this  anguish  was  followed  by  utter  annihilation 
of  consciousness.  It  is  very  difficult,  moreover,  to  deter- 
mine how  long  apparent  death  may  be  protracted  in  an  or- 
ganism under  water.  It  varies  greatly  with  temperaments. 


320  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

In  the  islands  of  the  Greek  archipelago,  where  the  busi- 
ness of  gathering  sponges  from  the  bottom  of  the  sea  is 
pursued,  children  are  not  allowed  to  drink  wine  until,  by 
practice,  they  have  grown  accustomed  to  remain  a  certain 
time  under  water.  Old  divers  of  the  archipelago  say  that 
the  time  to  return  and  take  breath  at  the  surface  is  indi- 
cated to  them  by  painful  convulsions  of  the  limbs,  and  very 
severe  contractions  in  the  region  of  the  heart.  This  power 
of  enduring  asphyxia  for  some  time,  and  resisting  by  force 
of  will  the  movements  of  respiration,  has  been  remarked 
under  other  circumstances.  The  case  of  a  Hindoo  is  men- 
tioned, who  used  to  creep  into  the  palisaded  inclosures 
used  for  bathing,  in  the  Ganges,  by  the  ladies  of  Calcutta, 
seize  one  of  them  by  the  legs,  drown  her,  and  rob  her  of 
her  rings.  It  was  supposed  that  a  crocodile  carried  her  off. 
One  of  his  intended  victims  succeeding  in  escaping,  the  as- 
sassin was  seized  and  executed  in  1817.  He  confessed 
that  he  had  practised  the  horrible  business  for  seven  years. 
Another  instance  is  that  of  a  spy,  who,  seeing  prepara- 
tions making  for  his  execution,  endeavored  to  escape  it  by 
feigning  death.  He  held  his  breath,  and  suspended  all 
voluntary  motions  for  twelve  hours,  and  endured  all  the 
tests  applied  to  him  to  put  the  reality  of  his  death  beyond 
doubt.  Anaesthetics,  too,  like  chloroform  and  ether,  some- 
times produce  stronger  effects  than  the  surgeons  using 
them  desire,  and  occasion  a  state  of  seeming  death  instead 
of  temporary  insensibility. 

It  is  easy  to  recall  persons  to  life  who  are  in  a  state  of 
seeming  death ;  it  is  only  needful  to  stimulate  powerfully 
the  two  mechanical  systems  that  are  more  or  less  com- 
pletely suspended  in  action,  namely,  those  of  respiration 
and  circulation.  Such  movements  are  communicated  to 
the  frame  of  the  chest,  that  the  lungs  are  alternately  com- 
pressed and  dilated.  A  sort  of  shampooing  is  applied  over 
the  whole  body,  which  restores  the  capillary  circulation ; 


THE  PHYSIOLOGY   OF  DEATH.  321 

chemical  stimulants,  such  as  ammonia  or  acetic  acid,  are 
brought  under  the  patient's  nostrils.  This  is  the  mode  of 
treatment  for  drowned  persons,  whose  condition  is  brought 
on  by  ceasing  to  breathe  the  air,  not  by  taking  in  too  much 
water.  A  very  effective  method  in  cases  of  apparent  death, 
caused  by  inhaling  a  poisonous  gas,  such  as  carbonic  acid 
or  sulphuretted  hydrogen,  consists  in  making  the  patient 
draw  in  large  quantities  of  pure  oxygen.  And,  again,  it 
has  very  lately  been  proposed,  as  Halle*  suggested  without 
success  early  in  this  century,  to  adopt  the  use  of  strong 
electric  currents  for  stimulating  movement  in  persons  who 
are  in  a  state  of  syncope. 

In  all  the  cases  of  seeming  death  we  have  just  men- 
tioned, one  mark  of  vitality  persistently  remains,  that  is, 
pulsation  of  the  heart.  Its  throbs  are  less  strong  and  fre- 
quent, but  they  continue  perceptible  on  auscultation.  They 
are  regularly  discernible  in  the  deepest  fainting-fits,  in  the 
various  kinds  of  asphyxia,  in  poisonings  by  the  most  vio- 
lent narcotics,  in  hysteria,  in  the  torpor  of  epilepsy,  in 
short,  in  the  most  diverse  and  protracted  states  of  lethargy 
and  seeming  death. 

Yet,  this  result,  now  a  practical  certainty,  was  unknown 
to  physicians  of  old,  and  it  cannot  be  denied  that,  in  former 
times,  seeming  death  was  quite  often  mistaken  for  true 
death.  The  annals  of  science  have  recorded  a  certain  num- 
ber of  errors  of  this  kind,  many  of  which  have  resulted  in 
the  interment  of  unfortunate  wretches  who  were  not  dead. 
And  for  one  of  these  mistakes  that  chance  has  brought  to 
light  either  too  late,  or  in  time  for  the  rescue,  even  then, 
of  the  victim,  how  many  are  there,  particularly  in  times 
of  ignorance  and  carelessness,  that  no  one  has  ever  known  ! 
How  many  live  men  have  only  given  up  their  last  breath 
after  a  vain  struggle  to  break  out  of  their  coffin  !  The 
facts  collected  by  Bruhier  and  Lallemand  in  two  works 
that  have  become  classic  compose  a  most  mournful  and 


332  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

dramatic  history.  These  are  some  of  its  episodes,  marked 
by  the  strange  part  that  chance  plays  in  them.  A  rural 
guard,  having  no  family,  dies  in  a  little  village  of  Lower 
Charente.  Hardly  grown  cold,  his  body  is  taken  out  of 
bed,  and  laid  on  a  straw  ticking  covered  with  a  coarse 
cloth.  An  old  hired  woman  is  charged  with  the  watch 
over  the  bed  of  death.  At  the  foot  of  the  corpse  were  a 
branch  of  box,  put  into  a  vessel  filled  with  holy  water,  and 
a  lighted  taper.  Toward  midnight  the  old  watcher,  yield- 
ing to  the  invincible  need  of  sleep,  fell  into  a  deep  slum- 
ber. Two  hours  later  she  awoke  surrounded  by  flames 
from  a  fire  that  had  caught  her  clothes.  She  rushed  out, 
crying  with  all  her  might  for  help,  and  the  neighbors,  run- 
ning together  at  her  screams,  saw  in  a  moment  a  naked 
spectre  issue  from  the  hut,  limping  and  hobbling  on  limbs 
covered  with  burns.  While  the  old  woman  slept,  a  spark 
had  probably  dropped  on  the  straw  bed,  and  the  fire  it 
kindled  had  aroused  both  the  watcher  from  her  sleep  and 
the  guard  from  his  seeming  death.  With  timely  assistance 
he  recovered  from  his  burns,  and  grew  sound  and  well 
again. 

On  the  15th  of  October,  1842,  a  farmer  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Neufchatel,  in  the  Lower  Seine,  climbed  into  a 
loft  over  his  barn  to  sleep,  as  he  usually  did,  among  the 
hay.  Early  the  next  day,  his  customary  hour  of  rising 
being  past,  his  wife,  wishing  to  know  the  cause  of  his  de- 
lay, went  to  look  for  him,  and  found  him  dead.  At  the 
time  of  interment,  more  than  twenty-four  hours  after,  the 
bearers  placed  the  body  in  a  coffin,  which  was  closed,  and 
carried  it  slowly  down  the  ladder  by  which  they  had  gained 
the  loft.  Suddenly  one  of  the  rounds  of  the  ladder  snapped, 
and  the  bearers  fell  together  with  the  coffin,  which  burst 
open  with  the  shock.  The  accident,  which  might  have 
been  fatal  to  a  live  man,  was  very  serviceable  to  the  dead 
one,  who  was  roused  from  his  lethargy  by  the  concussion, 


THE  PHYSIOLOGY   OF  DEATH.  333 

i 

returned  to  life,  and  hastened  to  get  out  of  his  shroud . 
with  the  assistance  of  those  of  the  by-standers  who  had  riot 
been  frightened  away  by  his  sudden  resurrection.  An  hour 
later  he  could  recognize  his  friends,  and  felt  no  uneasiness 
except  a  slight  confusion  in  his  head,  and  the  next  day  was 
able  to  go  to  work  again.  At  about  the  same  time  a  resi- 
dent of  Nantes  gave  up  life  after  a  long  illness.  His  heirs 
made  arrangements  for  a  grand  funeral,  and,  while  the  per- 
formance of  a  requiem  was  going  on,  the  dead  man  re- 
turned to  life  and  stirred  in  the  coffin,  that  stood  in  the 
middle  of  the  church.  When  carried  home,  he  soon  re- 
gained his  health.  Some  time  afterward,  the  cure,  not 
caring  to  be  at  the  trouble  of  the  burial  ceremonies  for 
nothing,  sent  a  bill  to  the  ex-corpse,  who  declined  to  pay 
it,  and  referred  the  cure  to  the  heirs  who  had  given  orders 
for  the  funeral.  A  lawsuit  followed,  with  which  the  papers 
of  the  day  kept  the  public  greatly  amused.  A  few  years 
ago  Cardinal  Donnet,  in  the  Senate,  told  his  own  story  of 
the  circumstances  under  which  he  narrowly  escaped  being 
buried  alive. 

Besides  these  instances  of  premature  burial  in  which 
the  victim  escaped  the  fearful  consequences  of  the  mistake 
made,  others  may  be  cited  in  which  the  blunder  was  dis- 
covered only  too  late.  Quite  a  number  of  such  cases  are 
known,  some  of  which  are  told  with  details  too  romantic 
to  entitle  them  to  implicit  belief,  while,  however,,  many 
of  them  show  unquestionable  signs  of  authenticity.  There 
long  prevailed  a  tradition,  not  easily  traceable  to  any  source, 
which  attributed  the  death  of  the  Abb6  Provost  to  a  mis- 
take of  this  kind.  All  his  biographers  relate  that  the 
famous  author  of  "  Manon  Lescaut,"  falling  senseless  from 
the  effect  of  a  rush  of  blood,  in  the  depths  of  the  forest  of 
Chantilly,  was  supposed  to  be  dead  ;  that  then  the  surgeon 
of  the  village  having  made  an  incision  into  his  stomach, 
by  direction  of  the  magistrate,  to  ascertain  the  cause  of 


324  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

death,  Provost  uttered  a  cry,  and  did  then  die  in  earnest. 
But  it  has  since  been  proved  that  the  story  is  imaginary, 
and  that  it  was  made  up  after  Provost's  death  ;  nor  do  any 
of  the  necrological  accounts  published  at  the  time  refer  it 
to  the  consequences  of  a  premature  autopsy.  Though  the 
account  of  Prevost  dissected  alive  seems  doubtful,  that  is 
not  the  case  with  the  story  told  with  regard  to  an  opera- 
tion by  the  famous  accoucheur,  Philip  Small.  A  woman, 
about  to  be  confined,  fell  into  a  state  of  seeming  death. 
Small  relates  that  when  he  was  summoned  to  perform  the 
Cesarean  operation,  the  by-standers,  convinced  that  the 
woman  was  dead,  urged  him  to  proceed  with  it.  "  I  sup- 
posed so,  too,"  he  says,  "  for  I  felt  no  pulse  in  the  region 
of  the  heart,  and  a  glass  held  over  her  face  showed  no  sign 
of  respiration."  Then  he  plunged  his  knife  into  the  body, 
and  was  cutting  among  the  bleeding  tissues,  when  the 
subject  awoke  from  her  lethargy. 

We  cite  some  still  more  startling  instances.  Thirty 
years  ago,  a  resident  of  the  village  of  Eymes,  in  Dordogne, 
had  been  suffering  for  a  long  time  from  a  chronic  disorder 
of  little  consequence  in  itself,  but  marked  by  the  distressing 
symptom  of  constant  wakefulness,  which  forbade  the  pa- 
tient any  kind  of  rest.  Worn  out  with  this  condition,  he 
consulted  a  doctor,  who  prescribed  opium,  advising  great 
caution  in  its  use.  The  invalid,  possessed  with  that  com- 
mon-enough notion  that  the  efficacy  of  a  drug  is  propor- 
tioned to  its  quantity,  took  at  one  time  a  dose  sufficient 
for  several  days.  He  soon  fell  into  a  deep  sleep,  which 
continued  unbroken  for  more  than  twenty-four  hours.  The 
village  doctor,  being  summoned,  finds  the  body  without 
warmth,  the  pulse  extinct,  and,  on  opening  the  veins  of 
both  arms  in  succession,  obtains  but  a  few  drops  of  thick 
blood.  The  day  after,  they  prepared  for  his  burial.  But, 
a  few  days  later,  closer  inquiry  revealed  the  imprudence 
the  poor  wretch  had  committed  in  taking  an  excessive 


THE  PHYSIOLOGY   OP   DEATH.  325 

quantity  of  the  prescribed  narcotic.  The  report  spreading 
among  the  villagers,  they  insist  on  his  disinterment,  which 
is  allowed.  Gathering  in  a  crowd  at  the  cemetery,  they 
take  up  the  coffin,  open  it,  and  are  met  by  a  horrible  sight. 
The  miserable  man  had  turned  over  in  his  coffin,  the  blood 
gushing  from  the  two  opened  veins  had  soaked  the  shroud ; 
his  features  were  frightfully  contorted,  and  his  convulsed 
limbs  bore  witness  to  the  cruel  anguish  that  had  preceded 
death.  Most  of  the  facts  of  this  kind  are  of  rather  remote 
date.  The  latest  instances  have  happened  in  the  country, 
among  an  ignorant  population,  usually  in  neighborhoods 
where  no'  physician  was  called  on  to  ascertain  the  decease, 
that  is,  to  distinguish  the  cases  of  seeming  death  from  those 
of  true  death. 

How,  then,  can  we  certainly  know  apparent  from  real 
death?  There  is  a  certain  number  of  positive  signs  of 
death ;  that  is  to  say,  signs  which,  when  absolutely  dis- 
cerned, leave  no  room  for  mistake.  Yet  some  physicians, 
and  many  people  who  know  nothing  of  science,  are  still  so 
doubtful  about  the  certainty  of  these  signs  as  to  wish  that 
physiology  could  detect  others  of  a  more  positive  charac- 
ter. A  zealous  philanthropist  quite  lately  gave  a  sum  for 
a  prize  of  twenty  thousand  francs  to  the  discoverer  of  an 
infallible  sign  of  death.  Doubtless  the  intention  is  ex- 
cellent, but  we  are  safe  henceforward  in  regarding  the  sex- 
toii's  work  without  alarm ;  the  signs  already  known  are 
clear  enough  to  prevent  any  mistake,  and  to.  make  the  fatal 
risk  of  premature  burial  impossible. 

We  must  point  out,  in  the  first  place,  the  immediate 
signs  of  death,  The  first  and  the  most  decisive  is  the 
absolute  stoppage  of  the  heart's  pulsations,  noted  for  a 
duration  of  at  least  five  minutes,  not  by  the  touch,  but  by 
the  ear.  "  Death  is  certain,"  says  the  reporter  of  the  com- 
mission named  in  1848  by  the  Academy  of  Sciences  to 
award  the  prize  of  competition  as,  to  the  signs  of  true  death, 


326  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

"  when  positive  cessation  of  pulsations  of  the  heart  in  the 
subject  has  been  ascertained,  which  is  immediately  followed, 
if  it  has  not  been  preceded,  by  cessation  of  respiration  and 
of  the  functions  of  sensation  and  motion."  The  remote 
signs  equally  deserve  attention.  Of  these,  three  are  recog- 
nized :  corpse-like  rigidity,  resistance  to  the  action  of  gal- 
vanic currents,  and  putrefaction.  As  we  have  already  seen, 
rigidity  does  not  begin  till  several  hours  after  death,  while 
general  and  complete  disappearance  of  muscular  contrac- 
tility, under  the  stimulus  of  currents,  and,  last  of  all,  pu- 
trefaction, are  only  manifest  at  a  still  later  period.  These 
remote  signs,  particularly  the  last,  have  this  advantage, 
that  they  may  be  ascertained  by  those  unacquainted  with 
medicine,  and  it  is  very  well  to  pay  some  attention  to  them 
in  countries  where  physicians  are  not  charged  with  the 
verification  of  the  disease,  but  they  are  of  no  importance 
wherever  there  are  doctors  to  examine  the  heart  with  in- 
struments, and  to  decide  promptly  and  surely  upon  the 
death,  from  the  complete  stoppage  of  pulsation  in  that 
organ.  At  the  beginning  of  the  century,  Hufeland  and 
several  other  physicians,  convinced  that  all  the  signs  of 
death  then  known  were  uncertain,  except  putrefaction, 
proposed  and  obtained  in  Germany  the  establishment  of 
a  certain  number  of  mortuary  houses,  intended  to  receive 
and  keep  for  some  time  the  bodies  of  deceased  persons. 
During  the  whole  existence  of  these  establishments,  not 
one  of  the  bodies  transported  into  those  asylums  has  been 
known  to  return  to  life,  as  the  authentic  declarations  of  the 
attendant  doctors  agree.  The  usefulness  of  such  mortuary 
houses  is  still  more  questionable  in  our  time,  when  we  have 
a  positive  and  certain  means  of  recognizing  real  death. 
Those  police  regulations  that  forbid  autopsies  and  inter- 
ments until  the  full  term  of  delay  for  twenty-four  hours, 
measured  from  the  declaration  of  death,  still  remain  pru- 
dent precautions,  but  they  do  not  lessen  at  all  the  certainty 


THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  DEATH.         ,  327 

of  that  evidence  furnished  by  the  stopping  of  the  heart. 
When  the  heart  has  definitely  ceased  to  beat,  then  resur- 
rection is  no  longer  possible,  and  the  life  which  deserts  it 
is  preparing  to  enter  upon  a  new  cycle. 

Hamlet^  in  his  famous  soliloquy,  speaks  of  "  that  undis- 
covered country  from  whose  bourn  no  traveler  returns," 
and  mournfully  asks  what  must  be  the  dreams  of  the  man 
to  whom  death  has  opened  the  portals  of  those  gloomy 
regions.  We  can  give  no  clearer  answer  in  the  name  of 
physiology  than  Shakespeare's  prince  gives.  Physiology 
is  dumb  as  to  the  destiny  of  the  soul  after  death ;  of  that 
it  teaches,  and  it  can  teach  us,  nothing.  It  is  plain,  and 
it  would  be  childish  to  deny  it,  that  any  psychical  or  sen- 
tient manifestation  and  any  concrete  representation  of  the 
personality  are  impossible  after  death.  The  dissolution 
of  the  organism  annihilates  surely,  and  of  necessity,  the 
functions  of  sensation,  motion,  and  will,  which  are  insepa- 
rable from  a  certain  combination  of  material  conditions. 
We  can  feel,  move,  and  will,  only  so  far  as  we  have  organs 
for  reception,  transmission,  and  execution.  These  assur- 
ances of  science  are  above  discussion,  and  should  be  ac- 
cepted without  reserve.  Do  they  tell  us  any  thing  of  the 
destiny  of  the  psychical  principles  themselves  ?  Again  we 
say,  No,  and  for  the  very  simple  reason  that  science  does 
not  attain  to  those  principles  ;  but  metaphysics,  which  does 
attain  to  them,  authorizes  us,  nay,  further,  compels  us,  to 
believe  that  they  are  immortal.  They  are  immortal,  as 
the  principles  of  motion,  the  principles  of  perception,  all 
the  active  unities  of  the  world,  are  immortal.  What  is  the 
general  characteristic  of  those  unities  ?  It  is  that  of  being 
simple,  which  means  being  indestructible,  which  means 
being  in  harmonious  mutual  connection,  after  such  a  man- 
ner that  each  one  of  them  perceives  the  infinite  order  of 
the  other.  If  this  connection  did  not  exist,  there  would 
be  no  world.  What  is  the  characteristic  of  the  psychical 


328  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

unities  more  especially  ?  It  is  that  of  having,  moreover, 
the  consciousness  of  such  perception,  the  feeling  also  of 
the  relations  that  bind  the  whole  together,  and  those  facul- 
ties, more  or  less  developed,  which  that  consciousness  and 
that  perception  imply.  Bat  why  should  these  unities  be 
any  more  perishable  than  the  others?  Why,  if  all  these 
forces,  all  these  activities,  are  eternal,  should  those  alone 
not  possess  eternity  which  have  this  high  privilege,  that 
of  knowing  the  infinite  relations  which  the  others  sustain 
without  knowing  that  they  do  so  ? 

To  form  a  conception  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
then,  we  must  place  ourselves  at  that  point  of  view  to 
which  men  rarely  and  hardly  rise,  of  the  simplicity  and 
the  indefectibility  of  all  those  principles  of  force  that  fill 
the  universe.  We  must  train  ourselves  to  understand  that 
what  we  see  is  nothing  in  comparison  with  what  we  do  not 
see.  The  whole  force,  the  whole  spring,  of  the  most  com- 
plex movements,  the  most  magnificent  phenomena  of  Na- 
ture and  the  most  subtile  operations  of  life,  thought  in- 
cluded, proceed  from  the  infinite  commingling  of  an  infinity 
of  series  of  invisible  and  unextended  principles,  whose  ac- 
tivities ascend  in  the  scale  of  perfection  from  simple  power 
of  movement  up  to  supreme  reason.  Human  personality, 
such  as  we  see -and  know  it,  is  only  a  coarse  and  complex 
result  from  those  of  these  primitive  activities  which  are 
the  best  and  deepest  thing  in  us.  It  is  not  that  person- 
ality which  is  immortal — that  is  no  more  immortal  than 
the  motive  force  of  a  steam-engine  is,  or  the  electricity  of 
a  voltaic  battery,  although  movement  and  electricity  are 
of  themselves  indestructible.  It  is  not  that  personality 
which  can  aspire  to  a  home  in  the  bosom  of  God.  Our 
true  personality,  our  real  T9  that  which  may  without  illu- 
sion count  on  a  future  life,  is  unity  released  from  every 
material  bond,  and  all  concrete  alloy ;  it  is  that  force,  neces- 
sarily pure,  which  has  a  more  or  less  clear  consciousness 


THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  DEATH.  339 

of  its  own  relations  with  the  infinity  of  like  unities,  and 
which  more  or  less  draws  near  to  them  by  thought  and  by 
love.  It  is  beyond  our  power  to  conceive  what  will  become 
of  that  unity  when,  quitting  its  prison  of  flesh,  and  soaring 
into  the  ideal  ether,  it  will  no  longer  have  organs  with 
which  to  act ;  but  what  we  can  affirm  is  that,  precisely  by- 
reason  of  this  freedom,  it  will  rise  to  a  clearer  knowledge 
of  all  that  it  had  only  known  obscurely,  and  to  a  purer  love 
of  what  it  had  adored  only  through  the  veil  of  sense.  And 
this  certainty,  which  is  the  ennobling  and  elevating  force 
of  life,  is  also  the  consolation  for  death. 


15 


HEREDITY  IN  PHYSIOLOGY,  IN  MEDICINE, 
AND  IN  PSYCHOLOGY. 

THERE  are  many  grounds  of  pride  and  satisfaction  for 
the  mind  in  the  sciences  known  to  man,  but  reasons  for  hu- 
mility and  bitter  regret  are  also  supplied  by  them  to  the 
full.  Spite  of  the  persistent  strivings  and  labored  medita- 
tions of  the  legions  of  investigators  who  have  gone  before 
us,  Nature  still  has  her  deep  and  dark  abysses,  at  whose 
blank  look  all  insight  turns  to  blindness,  all  boldness  dies 
in  fear,  and  all  confidence  becomes  despair.  When  we  at- 
tempt to  throw  a  little  light  upon  the  heart  of  these  mys- 
terious chasms,  that  light  merely  reflects  to  our  view  the 
ghosts  of  our  own  ignorance,  and  we  gain  from  the  futile 
effort  only  a  fresh  conviction  of  our  own  impotence  and 
poverty.  It  would  be  wise  to  gain  from  it  something 
more  ;  I  mean,  a  lesson  to  benefit  us.  Indeed,  nothing 
should  so  chide  us  back  to  humility  and  patience,  so  cool 
our  presuming  eagerness  and  daunt  our  daring  arrogance, 
as  the  study  of  those  phenomena  which  Providence  seems 
to  have  ordained  purposely  to  baffle  human  inquisitiveness. 
Yet  many  men  affect  to  be  unconscious  of  the  astounding 
and  intricate  operations  which  are  taking  place  in  regions 
that  sight  and  sense  never  sound,  and  stubbornly  dispute 
the  existence  of  unseen  activities  and  unfelt  powers.  This 
is  the  deadly,  doubting  temper  that  the  evidence  of  those 
sphinxes  of  which  we  are  now  treating  must  be  brought 
to  attack.  The  lesson  is  all  the  more  eloquent  because,  by 
strange  contrast,  those  questions  that  defy  every  kind  of 


HEREDITY   IN  PHYSIOLOGY,  IN  MEDICINE,  ETC.     331 

theoretical  exposition  and  of  pictured  conception  are  pre- 
cisely the  ones  best  understood  on  their  practical  side. 
Familiarity  with  effects  seems  in  these  cases  unavailing  to 
gain  any  understanding  of  causes. 

These  reflections  have  a  particular  application  to  he- 
redity. The  fact  exists  that  the  ovule  contains  in  its  sub- 
stance, seemingly  homogeneous,  not  simply  the  anatomical 
organism  of  the  individual  about  to  issue  from  it,  but,  more- 
over, his  temperament,  character,  capacities,  his  thoughts, 
and  his  feelings.  The  parents  lodge  in  that  molecule  the 
future  of  an  existence  almost  always  identical  with  their 
own  from  the  physiological  point  of  view,  often  so  in  re- 
spect to  the  pathological  one,  and  wholly  so  in  many  in- 
stances when  psychologically  regarded.  We  propose  to 
bring  to  our  readers'  knowledge  the  results  of  the  latest 
researches  on  the  subject  of  that  amazing  work  of  vital 
economy.1 

I. 

Heredity  is  that  biological  law  in  virtue  of  which  living 
beings  incline  to  transmit  to  their  progeny  a  certain  por- 
tion of  the  traits  which  characterize  themselves.  It  is  a 
very  delicate  problem  to  decide  whether  we  are  to  attrib- 
ute to  heredity  the  handing  down  of  the  anatomical  forms 
and  the  physiological  functions  of  that  species  which  is 
represented  in  the  particular  system.  At  all  events,  in  this 
respect  it  is  plain  that  the  reproduction  of  parents  in  their 
children  is  thorough  and  absolute  ;  otherwise  there  would 
be  no  such  thing  as  species  ;  there  would  be  mere  succes- 
sions of  beings,  with  no  other  relations  to  each  other  than 
that  of  generation.  Within  our  experience,  as  limited  by 
history,  the  constant  new  production  of  specific  characteris- 
tics, always  identical,  in  other  words,  the  permanent  integ- 
rity of  species,  is  a  fact  almost  beyond  dispute.  Such 

1  See  particularly  Th.  Ribot,  "  Heredity,  its  Phenomena,  its  Laws," 
etc.  Paris,  8vo,  1873. 


332  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

characteristics  as  mark  the  differences  between  races  and 
varieties  are  transmitted  ,with  less  certainty  and  uniformity, 
and  the  fact  of  the  various  transformations  which  these 
may  undergo  from  generation  to  generation  is  precisely  the 
one  upon  which  a  famous  school  of  naturalists  insists,  in  its 
attempt  to  demonstrate,  within  certain  limits,  as  to  extent, 
the  utter  change  of  organisms  in  the  lapse  of  ages.  Still 
less  fixed  and  amenable  to  rule  is  the  reproduction  of  those 
characteristics,  not  so  general  as  those  of  race  and  species, 
which  may  be  looked  on  as  peculiar  to  the  individual. 
Thus,  as  characteristics  increase  in  peculiarity  and  special- 
ty, escaping  the  law  of  heredity,  the  chances  increase  that 
children  will  differ  from  their  parents.  Yet  observation — 
and  that  as  ancient  as  man  himself  is — fixes  the  truth  that 
these  completely  personal  characteristics  may  be  transmit- 
ted by  generation.  Within  what  limits,  and  under  what 
conditions  ?  This  is  the  point  that  we  must  examine  with 
the  wariest  caution,  for  a  question  does  not  exist  about 
which  there  is  a  greater  risk  of  slipping  in  perilous  down- 
ward paths. 

Heredity  is  peculiarly  manifest  in  continuous  existence 
of  pathological  and  physiological  conditions.  It  is  espe- 
cially betrayed  in  the  expression  and  features  of  the  face. 
The  ancients  took  note  of  this;  hence,  among  the  Romans, 
the  nasones,  labeones,  buccones,  capitones,  etc.  The  nose 
is  perhaps  that  one  of  all  the  features  which  heredity  most 
persistently  maintains  ;  the  Bourbon  nose  is  famous.  He- 
redity shows  itself  also  in  fecundity  and  longevity.  In 
the  old  French  nobility  many  families  possessed  immense 
vigor  in  propagation.  Anne  de  Montmorency,  who,  when 
past  seventy-five,  was  still  strong  enough  to  smash  with 
his  sword  the  teeth  of  the  Scotch  soldier  who  gave  him  his 
death-blow  in  the  battle  of  Saint-Denis,  was  the  father  of 
twelve  children.  Three  of  his  ancestors,  Matthew  (1st), 
Matthew  (3d),  and  Matthew  (3d),  had  among  them  eighteen 


HEREDITY  IN  PHYSIOLOGY,  IN  MEDICINE,  ETC.     333 

children,  fifteen  of  whom  were  boys.  The  son  and  the 
grandson  of  the  great  Conde  counted  nineteen  children  in 
their  two  families,  and  their  great-grandfather,  killed  at 
Jarnac,  had  ten.  The  first  four  Guises  counted  together 
forty-three  children,  thirty  of  them  boys.  Achille  de 
Harlay,  father  of  the  first  President  de  Harlay,  had  nine 
children,  his  father  ten,  his  great-grandfather  eighteen.  In 
some  families  this  fertility  persisted  for  five  or  six  genera- 
tions. The  mean  length  of  human  life  depends  on  locali- 
ties, food,  state  of  civilization,  but  individual  longevity 
seems  to  be  wholly  independent  of  these  conditions.  It  is 
remarked  among  those  who  lead  lives  of  the  hardest  toil, 
as  well  as  among  those  who  take  the  greatest  care  of  their 
health,  and  it  seems  to  depend  upon  some  inward  potency 
of  vitality  received  by  individuals  from  their  ancestors. 
This  is  so  well  understood  that,  in  England,  life-insurance 
companies  require  from  their  agents  full  reports  as  to  the 
longevity  of  the  ancestors  of  applicants.  In  the  family  of 
Turgot  the  age  of  fifty-nine  years  was  seldom  outlived,  and 
the  man  who  has  given  lustre  to  its  name,  on  the  day  he 
reached  his  fiftieth  year,  felt  a  presentiment  that  the  end  of 
his  life  was  not  far  off.  Notwithstanding  his  appearance 
of  perfectly  good  health,  and  his  extremely  vigorous  con- 
stitution, from  that  time  he  held  himself  in  readiness  for 
death,  and  he  did  in  fact  die  at  the  age  of  fifty-three. 

Heredity  often  transmits  muscular  strength,  and  vari- 
ous other  motive  energies.  Antiquity  had  its  families  of 
athletes.  The  English  have  their  families  of  boxers.  The 
late  inquiries  of  Mr.  Galton  on  the  subject  of  wrestlers  and 
racing-crews,  prove  that  the  victors  in  the  contests  in 
which  these  men  take  part  usually  belong  to  a  small  num- 
ber of  families  in  which  skill  and  agility  come  by  descent. 
Suppleness  and  grace  in  dancing  movements  are  transmit- 
ted, too,  as  the  famous  family  of  the  Vestris  witnesses.  It 
is  the  same  with  different  peculiarities  of  the  voice,  stam- 


334  NATUKE  AND  LIFE. 

mering,  nasal  speaking,  slurring  the  r,  etc.  Families  of 
singers  are  numerous.  Most  children  born  of  talkative 
people  chatter  from  their  cradle.  Dr.  Lucas  mentions  an 
instance  of  a  servant  of  boundless  loquacity.  She  talked 
people  utterly  out  of  breath  ;  she  would  chatter  to  animals, 
to  things ;  she  gabbled  aloud  to  herself.  Her  master  was 
obliged  to  dismiss  her.  "  But,"  she  said,  "  it  is  not  my 
fault,  it  comes  from  my  father  ;  it  was  so  strong  in  him  that 
it  drove  my  mother  wild,  and  he  had  a  father  exactly  like 
me  in  that." 

Heredity  in  anomalies  of  the  organization  has  been  no- 
ticed in  a  great  number  of  cases.  One  of  the  strangest  is 
that  of  Edward  Lambert,  whose  body,  excepting  his  face, 
the  palms  of  his  hands,  and  the  soles  of  his  feet,  was  cov- 
ered with  a  sort  of  armor  of  horny  excrescences.  He  had 
six  children,  all  of  whom,  from  six  weeks  of  age,  showed 
the  same  singularity.  The  only  one  that  survived  trans- 
mitted it,  like  his  father,  to  all  his  sons,  and  this  transmis- 
sion, passing  from  male  to  male,  continued  for  five  genera- 
tions. The  Colburn  family  is  mentioned  also,  in  which  the 
parents  transmitted  to  the  children,  during  four  genera- 
tions, what  is  called  sexdigitism,  that  is,  six  fingers  on  each 
hand,  and  feet  with  six  toes  each.  In  the  same  way  al- 
binism, lameness,  hare-lip,  and  other  anomalies,  are  repro- 
duced in  the  progeny.  It  has  been  observed  that  entirely 
individual  peculiarities  may  be  subject  to  a  like  tendency 
to  reappearance.  Giron  de  Buzareingues  says  that  he 
knew  a  man  who  had  the  habit,  when  in  bed,  of  lying  on 
his  back  and  crossing  the  right  leg  over  the  left  one.  One 
of  his  daughters  was  born  with  the  same  habit ;  she  regu- 
larly took  that  position  in  the  cradle,  in  spite  of  the  impedi- 
ment of  her  baby-dress.  The  same  author  declares  that  he 
has  often  remarked  children  who  had  inherited  habits 
equally  singular,  which  could  be  accounted  for  neither  by 
imitation  nor  by  education.  Darwin  mentions  another 


HEREDITY  IN  PHYSIOLOGY,  IN  MEDICINE,  ETC.     335 

instance  of  the  kind  :  A  child  had  the  odd  trick  of  moving 
his  fingers  rapidly  about  when  pleased.  When  greatly  ex- 
cited he  would  raise  both  hands  on  either  side  of  the  face, 
as  high  as  the  eyes,  still  shaking  his  fingers.  After  reaching 
old  age,  he  still  found  it  troublesome  to  refrain  from  making 
those  gestures.  He  had  eight  children,  one  of  them  a  lit- 
tle girl,  who  from  the  age  of  four  years  had  her  father's 
trick  of  shaking  her  fingers  and  lifting  her  hands.  So,  too, 
heredity  in  handwriting  has  been  noticed.  There  are  fami- 
lies in  which  left-handedness  is  hereditary.  Various  pecu- 
liarities in  the  state  of  the  organs  of  sense  are  transmitted 
in  like  manner.  Almost  all  the  members  of  the  Montmo- 
rency  family  were  affected  with  a  slight  squint,  which  was 
called  the  Montmorency  look.  Inability  to  distinguish  be- 
tween different  colors  is  well  known  to  run  in  families;  the 
famous  English  chemist  Dalton,  and  two  of  his  brothers, 
were  thus  affected ;  and  hence  the  name  of  daltonism  is 
given  to  that  peculiarity.  Deafness  and  blindness  are 
sometimes  hereditary,  though  rarely  so ;  the  condition  of 
deaf-muteness  still  more  rarely.  Many  strange  instances 
of  the  transmission  of  certain  perversities  of  the  sense  of 
taste  are  cited.  Lucas  relates,  Zimmermann  says,  the  fol- 
lowing fact :  In  Scotland  a  man  was  haunted  by  an  uncon- 
querable longing  to  eat  human  flesh.  He  had  a  daughter. 
Though  separated  from  her  father  and  mother,  who  were 
sentenced  to  burning  before  she  was  a  year  old,  and  though 
brought  up  among  people  in  a  good  station  of  life,  this 
young  girl  gave  way,  like  her  father,  to  the  incredible 
craving  for  cannibalism.  This  instance  clearly  borders  on 
insanity. 

Insanity  is  assuredly  transmitted  by  heredity.  Esquirol 
found  among  thirteen  hundred  and  seventy-five  cases  of 
madness  three  hundred  and  thirty-seven  in  which  it  was  in- 
herited. Guislain  and  other  physicians  calculate  in  a  gen- 
eral way  that  the  number  of  cases  of  hereditary  mental 


336  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

alienation  represents  a  quarter  of  all  those  who  are  thus 
diseased.  Moreau  (of  Tours)  and  others  state  that  the 
proportion  is  even  greater.  Heredity  in  madness  does  not 
merely  comprise  direct  transmission  of  insanity  properly  so 
called ;  hysteria,  epilepsy,  chorea,  idiocy,  hypochondria,  may 
proceed  from  madness,  and  it  may  in  turn  reproduce  them. 
In  their  passage  from  one  generation  to  another,  these 
various  diseases  of  the  nerves  become  in  a  manner  mutually 
transformed.1  Herpin,  the  Genevese,  noted,  among  the  an- 
cestors of  two  hundred  and  forty-three  epileptic  subjects, 
seven  epileptics,  twenty-one  insane,  and  twenty-four  per- 
sons affected  with  cerebro-spinal  diseases.  Georget  draws 
the  conclusion,  from  numerous  observations  made  at  la 
Salpe'triere,  that  hysterical  women  almost  always  had 
among  their  near  relatives  those  who  were  hysteric, 
epileptic',  hypochondriac,  or  insane.  Moreau  dwells  on 
the  very  frequent  occurrence  of  morbid  nervous  conditions 
among  the  ancestors  of  the  idiotic  and  imbecile.  A  single 
fact  will  suffice  to  convey  some  conception  of  the  various 
and  strange  complications  following  on  the  transmission  by 
descent  of  nervous  disorders.  Dr.  Morel  attended  four 
brothers  of  the  same  family.  The  grandfather  of  these 
children  died  insane ;  their  father  was  quite  incapable  of 
fixing  his  mind  on  any  thing ;  their  uncle,  a  distinguished 
physician,  marked  by  high  intellectual  power,  was  noted 
for  his  eccentricities.  Now,  these  four  children,  sprung 
from  the  same  stock,  exhibited  very  differing  forms  of  psy- 
chical disorders :  one  was  a  madman,  subject  to  periodi- 

1  Mere  alcoholic  intoxication  may  be  transformed  into  serious  nervous 
diseases.  Children  conceived  in  an  acute  attack  of  drunkenness  are 
often  epileptic,  insane,  idiotic,  etc.  These  facts  have  been  remarked  since 
very  ancient  days.  A  law  of  Carthage  forbade  any  other  beverage  but 
water  on  the  day  of  marital  cohabitation,  and  Amyot  says,  "  Drunkenness 
begets  nothing  of  any  worth."  Late  and  accurate  researches  prove  that 
a  child  begotten  even  in  a  mere  passing  fit  of  intozication  always  bears 
ineffaceable  marks  of  more  or  less  grave  degeneracy. 


HEREDITY  IN  PHYSIOLOGY,  IN  MEDICINE,  ETC.     337 

cal  and  furious  fits ;  the  second,  a  hypochondriac,  was  re- 
duced by  brooding  inaction  to  the  state  of  a  mere  automa- 
ton ;  the  third  was  peculiar  from  his  excessive  irascibility, 
and  his  disposition  to  suicide ;  the  fourth  was  distinguished 
by  great  capabilities  for  the  arts,  but  was  timid  and  suspi- 
cious by  nature. 

Scrofula,  cancer,  tubercles,  syphilis,  gout,  arthritis,  tetter, 
and  generally  those  chronic  constitutional  complaints  which 
take  the  name  of  diatheses  and  cachexies,  very  often  descend 
from  parents  to  children.  The  heredity  of  these  diseased 
states  is  almost  as  common  and  positive  as  that  of  nervous 
affections.  Tt  may  also  be  asserted,  though  the  case  is 
much  more  unusual,  that  disorders  of  the  skin,  especially 
psoriasis,  may  be  transmitted. 

Nothing  can  be  more  dramatically  interesting  than  the 
evolution  of  these  hereditary  maladies,  which,  lodged  in  the 
system  of  children  in  the  form  of  germs,  of  mere  predis- 
positions, sometimes  are  destroyed  utterly  by  a  combina- 
tion of  fortunate  conditions  and  precautions,  sometimes  be- 
gin at  once  their  destined  destructive  work,  sometimes  lurk 
in  secret  for  years,  and  are  aroused  some  day,  pitiless  and 
terrible,  under  the  goad  of  various  stimulations.  Thus 
age,  sex,  temperament,  practices,  habits,  conditions  of 
health,  the  surrounding  medium,  all  take  part  in  the  de- 
velopment of  diseased  action,  coming  from  heredity.  In- 
sanity is  rare  in  childhood  ;  epilepsy  most  commonly  breaks 
out  in  early  youth.  Hysteria,  scrofula,  rachitis,  and  tu- 
bercles, make  their  appearance  in  childhood  and  youth ; 
gout,  gravel,  calculi,  baldness,  cancer,  are  hereditary  con- 
ditions manifest  in  the  adult.  Women  are  more  liable  to 
insanity,  epilepsy,  and  hysteria,  than  men.  The  latter,  to 
balance  the  scale,  are  much  oftener  attacked  by  gout,  grav- 
el, and  stone.  The  nervous  temperament  facilitates  the 
appearance  of  neuroses,  the  lymphatic-sanguine  tempera- 
ment that  of  arthritis  and  tetter,  the  lymphatic  that  of 


338  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

scrofula.  The  changes  that  occur  in  the  physiological  bal- 
ance of  the  individual  act  decidedly  upon  the  progress 
and  the  appearance  of  constitutional  disorders.  Thus  in- 
sanity very  often  makes  itself  known  just  after  menstrua- 
tion, pregnancy,  or  childbirth ;  epilepsy  and  hysteria  in 
like  manner  become  active  at  the  time  when  the  signs  of 
puberty  first  appear.  Education  and  manners  have  a  simi- 
lar influence.  Cruel  treatment  and  extreme  severity,  as 
also  utter  want  of  discipline  and  of  watchful  care,  often 
produce  lamentable  effects  on  the  brain  of  young  children. 
Alcoholic  indulgences  and  high  living  are  fatal  to  per- 
sons born  of  parents  afflicted  with  gout  and  gravel ;  while 
poverty  and  unwholesomeness  in  their  surroundings  deci- 
mate those  who  bear  the  seeds  of  consumption  within 
them. 

At  any  rate,  the  destructiveness  of  hereditary  diseases 
is  a  sad  and  striking  fact,  known  in  all  its  mournfulness  only 
to  those  who  are  called  every  day  to  observe  its  conse- 
quences. One  needs  to  see  the  premature  infirmities,  the 
wasting  sufferings,  the  irredeemable  misfortunes,  the  keen 
and  lingering  anguish  to  which  parents  often  doom  their  chil- 
dren while  they  believe  they  are  transmitting  to  them  the 
blessing  of  life,  if  one  would  judge  of  the  might  of  that 
fell  spirit  of  disease  lurking  in  the  inmost  depths  of  their 
being.  One  must  read  the  authors  who  have  written  on 
these  subjects,  and  especially  our  learned  French  special- 
ists in  insanity,  to  gain  acquaintance  with  that  mysterious 
and  maleficent  potency  which  that  frail  and  innocent  being, 
the  object,  for  one  fleeting  moment  of  illusions,  of  every 
joy,  and  blessing,  and  smiling  hope,  so  often  brings  as  its 
companion  when  it  opens  its  eyes  to  the  light  of  day. 

As  a  general  statement,  it  may  be  said  that  hereditary 
transmission,  either  of  personal  peculiarities  in  anatomical 
structure  and  in  temperament,  or  of  aptitudes  to  take  on 
one  or  another  morbid  state,  which  also  depends  on  certain 


HEREDITY   IN  PHYSIOLOGY,  IN  MEDICINE,  ETC.      339 

bodily  dispositions,  is  a  very  common  though  not  a  uni- 
form phenomenon  among  animals  and  in  man. 

Transmission  by  descent  of  individual  peculiarities  in 
the  order  of  intellect  or  the  affections,  and  heredity  in 
predisposition  to  some  one  or  other  moral  or  speculative 
activity,  are  also  phenomena  sometimes  remarked,  but  not 
so  commonly  as  the  foregoing  ones.  When  we  review  the 
series  of  instances  and  proofs  collected  and  appealed  to  by 
some  authors,  we  are  struck,  it  is  true,  by  the  seeming 
strength  of  these  arguments,  and  we  are  ready  to  concede 
to  heredity  a  very  large  share  in  the  development  of  the 
intellect  and  character  in  the  genesis  of  the  thinking  indi- 
vidual. We  fail  to  see,  or  we  forget,  the  prodigious  num- 
ber of  facts  that  bear  witness  the  contrary  way.  The  illu- 
sions of  that  mirage  have  not  been  without  their  use,  in 
the  sense  that  they  have  induced  very  interesting  re- 
searches, but  they  would  be  a  source  of  danger  did  they 
lead  the  public  to  put  faith  in  the  conclusions  drawn 
by  some  authors  from  these  investigations.  We  will 
briefly  point  out  the  real  advantage  to  be  gained  from 
these  researches,  and  will  attempt  to  disprove  the  infer- 
ences. 

According  to  Galton,  the  faculty  of  memory  in  the 
family  of  Richard  Porson,  the  famous  Greek  scholar,  was 
so  wonderful  that  it  had  passed  into  a  byword — "  the  Por- 
son memory."  Lady  Esther  Stanhope,  who  led  so  advent- 
urous a  life,  notes,  among  many  points  of  likeness  between 
herself  and  her  grandfather,  that  of  the  memory.  "  I  have 
mv  grandfather's  gray  eyes  and  his  memory  for  places,"  she 
says.  "If  he  saw  a  stone  on  the  road,  he  recollected  it, 
and  I  do  the  same ;  his  eyes,  dull  and  without  expression 
at  ordinary  times,  blazed  with  a  startling  light  as  mine  -do 
when  sudden  emotion  seized  him."  The  creative  and  im- 
aginative faculties,  which  take  a  dominant  part  in  poetry 
and  the  arts,  sometimes  pass  down  from  father  to  son. 


340  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

Galton,  in  the  work  published  by  him  four  years  ago,1  and 
Th.  Ribot,  in  his  very  late  book,  give  long  lists  of  painters, 
poets,  and  musicians,  designed  to  prove  the  part  which 
heredity  takes  in  the  production  of  these  artists'  talents. 
In  these  lists  many  instances  appear  in  which  that  influence 
cannot  be  called  in  question,  but  there  are  very  many 
more  in  which  it  is  extremely  disputable.  Thus  these  au- 
thors discover  the  influence  of  heredity  in  the  poetic  genius 
of  Byron,  Goethe,  and  Schiller,  because  they  find  in  their 
ancestors  certain  passions,  certain  vices  or  qualities,  as  if 
such  peculiarities  of  character  could  have  any  thing  to  do 
with  determining  poetic  genius.  In  fact,  their  catalogues 
do  not  name  one  great  poet  who  inherited  his  powers  from 
his  parents.  We  do  learn  from  them  that  a  great  poet 
sometimes  becomes  the  father  of  tolerably  good  poets, 
which  is  by  no  means  the  same  thing.  Hereditary  predis- 
position for  painting  is  more  real ;  in  a  list  of  forty-two 
famous  Italian,  Spanish,  or  Flemish  painters,  Galton  cites 
twenty-one  who  had  famous  parents.  The  names  of  Bel- 
lini, Caracci,  Teniers,  Van  Ostade,  Mieris,  Van  der  Yelde, 
Vernet,  are  proof  enough  of  the  existence  of  families  of 
painters.  In  Titian's  family  nine  meritorious  painters  are 
met  with.  The  history  of  musicians  presents  more  striking 
instances.  The  family  of  Bach  begins  in  1550  and  ends 
in  1800 ;  its  founder  was  Veit  Bach,  a  baker  at  Presburg, 
who  sought  recreation  from  his  work  in  music  and  singing. 
He  had  two  sons,  who  began  that  unbroken  succession 
of  musicians  of  the  same  name  which  filled  Thuringia, 
Saxony,  and  Franconia,  for  nearly  two  centuries.  They 
were  all  organists,  or  parish  singers,  or  town  musicians,  as 
they  are  styled  in  Germany.  When  the  members  of  this 
family  had  scattered,  becoming  too  numerous  to  live  in  the 
same  neighborhood,  they  agreed  to  come  together  on  a 
fixed  day  once  a  year,  in  order  to  keep  up  a  sort  of  patri- 
1  "  Hereditary  Genius,"  London,  1869. 


HEREDITY  IN  PHYSIOLOGY,  IN  MEDICINE,  ETC.     341 

archal  bond  among  tbem.  This  custom  was  observed  till 
toward  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  as  many 
as  a  hundred  and  twenty  persons,  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren, of  the  name  of  Bach,  were  often  seen  together.  In 
that  family  are  enumerated  twenty-nine  eminent  musicians, 
and  twenty-eight  of  inferior  repute.  The  father  of  Mozart 
was  second  chapel-master  to  the  Prince-bishop  of  Salzburg. 
Beethoven's  was  a  tenor  in  the  chapel  of  the  Elector  of 
Cologne.  His  grandfather  had  been  a  singer  in  the  same 
chapel,  and  afterward  chapel-master.  The  parents  of  Ros- 
sini used  to  perform  music  at  fairs. 

We  find  that  heredity  intervenes  almost  as  powerfully 
and  constantly  in  the  transmission  of  those  passions  and 
feelings,  of  a  wholly  different  order,  which  produce  vicious 
inclinations.  The  taste  for  alcohol,  the  habit  of  debauchery, 
the  passion  for  gaming,  gain  a  control  over  some  persons 
from  their  ancestors.  "  A  lady  among  my  intimates,  pos- 
sessing a  large  fortune,"  says  Gama  Machado,  "  had  a  pas- 
sion for  play,  and  passed  her  nights  at  the  gaming-table  ; 
she  died  while  young,  of  a  pulmonary  complaint.  Her  el- 
dest son,  who  was  like  her  in  every  respect,  was  equally  mad 
for  gambling ;  he,  too,  died  of  consumption,  like  his  mother, 
and  at  nearly  the  same  age.  His  daughter,  who  resembled 
him,  inherited  the  same  tastes,  and  died  young."  Heredity 
in  a  disposition  to  theft,  to  rape,  to  assassination,  to  sui- 
cide, has  been  noted  in  very  many  cases. 

In  the  degree  in  which  we  rise  from  purely  physiologi- 
cal or  pathological  regions  to  those  in  which  mental  activity 
is  more  clearly  present,  heredity  is  observed  to  lose  its  force 
and  its  uniformity.  There  have  been  families  of  savants, 
as  those  of  Cassini,  Jussieu,  Bernouilli,  Darwin,  Saussure, 
Geoffroy,  Pictet.  In  learning  and  literature  we  may  men- 
tion those  of  Estienne,  Grotius,  and  a  few  others.  The 
Mortemart  family  were  famous  for  their  wit.  A  genius  for 
statesmanship,  or  for  war,  has  sometimes  been  traced  con- 


342  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

tirmously  for  several  generations  in  some  families.  Taken 
all  together,  these  facts  of  transmission  of  the  psychic  fac- 
ulties are  not  numerous.  If  they  are  so  carefully  noted, 
and  put  forward  so  prominently,  it  seems  to  be  because 
they  are  not  common,  even  apart  from  the  remark  that 
there  are  several  of  them  with  which  perhaps  education 
has  had  as  much  to  do  as  ancestral  influence. 

Several  years  ago  there  appeared  a  book  under  the  title 
"  Phrenyogeny,"  in  which  is  to  be  found,  together  with 
many  visionary  or  paradoxical  propositions,  one  idea  that 
deserves  attention,  the  more  so  because  it  points  at  a  pecu- 
liarity about  which  physiologists  hitherto  seem  not  to  have 
concerned  themselves.  The  author  of  this  book,  Bernard 
Moulin,  attempts  to  prove  in  it  that  children  are  living 
photographs  of  their  parents  as 'these  are  at  the  very  in- 
stant of  conception :  in  his  view  parents  transmit  to  children 
those  tastes  and  predispositions  which  were  at  that  instant 
exerting  their  most  powerful  effect,  whether  spontaneously 
or  of  intention.  The  positive  conclusions  drawn  by  Moulin, 
from  his  researches  as  to  the  art  of  procreating  children  of 
the  best  kind,  sometimes  cause  a  smile,  but  the  facts  ad- 
duced in  support  of  them  are  curious.  We  mention  some 
of  them.  Nine  months  before  the  birth  of  Napoleon  I., 
Corsica  was  in  a  state  of  confusion.  The  famous  Paoli, 
at  the  head  of  an  army  of  citizens  formed  by  his  exer- 
tions, was  striving  to  quench  civil  war  and  prevent  a  for- 
eign invasion.  Charles  Buonaparte,  his  aide-de-camp  and 
secretary,  exhibited  admirable  courage  by  his  side.  The 
young  officer  had  his  wife  with  nim,  Letitia  Ramolino,  Ro- 
man in  her  beauty,  and  of  vigorous  and  masculine  character. 
Napoleon  was  conceived  under  canvas,  on  the  eve  of  a  bat- 
tle, two  paces  from  the  guns  trained  on  the  enemy.  Robes- 
pierre had  his  origin  in  the  year  1758,  that  year  which  saw 
the  regicide  Damiens  broken  on  the  wheel  and  quartered 
in  the  Place  de  Greve,  a  year  of  war,  famine,  and  disquiet. 


HEREDITY   IN  PHYSIOLOGY,  IN  MEDICINE,  ETC.     343 

His  father  was  a  lawyer,  and  an  insatiate  reader  of  the 
"  Ccmtrat  social."  Peter  the  Cruel,  King  of  Castile,  was  the 
son  of  Alphonso  XL,  who  lived  on  bad  terms  with  his  wife. 
Scandalous  scenes  of  anger,  jealousy,  and  violence,  contin- 
ually disturbed  the  royal  household,  and  the  issue  of  the  in- 
tercourse of  the  married  pair  was  Peter  the  Cruel,  a  monster 
of  physical  and  moral  ugliness.  History  shows  us  Raphael's 
parents,  both  devoted  to  the  art  of  painting.  The  wife,  a 
real  Madonna,  delighted  in  pious  and  graceful  subjects.  The 
father,  a  vigorous  dauber,  preferred  energy  for  his  share. 

Ribot,  in  the  remarkable  work  which  he  has  just  devoted 
to  heredity,  examines  the  laws  of  that  mysterious  influence 
which  he  judges  to  be  a  kind  of  habit,  or  perpetual  memory. 
These  laws  are  little  else  than  the  ascertainment  of  the  usual 
directions  in  which  the  hereditary  impulse  acts.  Sometimes 
transmission  passes  from  the  father  to  the  daughter,  from 
the  mother  to  the  son  ;  sometimes  the  child  takes  from  both 
its  parents.  Again,  it  often  occurs  that  the  child,  instead  of 
being  like  its  immediate  parents,  resembles  one  of  its  grand- 
parents or  some  yet  more  remote  ancestor,  or  some  distant 
member  of  a  collateral  branch  of  the  family.  This  is  what 
is  called  atavism,  or  reversed  heredity.1  The  latter  fact 
was  well  known  to  the  ancients.  Montaigne  expresses  his 
wonder  at  it.  "  What  a  prodigy  is  it,"  he  says,  "  that  the 
drop  of  seed  from  which  we  spring  bears  in  itself  not 

1  The  singular  phenomenon  of  alternating  generations  has  been  com- 
pared with  atavism.  In  1818,  Chamisso,  in  studying  the  biphora,  or  salpas, 
discovered  that  these  creatures  are  alternately  single  or  grouped.  In  the 
first  generation  the  biphora  are  found  as  chains,  produced  by  gemmation  ; 
in  the  second  they  are  single,  produced  by  spores ;  in  the  third  we  find 
chains  of  biphora  again,  so  that  the  son  is  never  like  its  father,  and 
always  like  its  grandfather.  The  researches  of  Saars  and  Steenstrup 
have  brought  the  fact  to  light  that  in  some  other  creatures  the  cycle  goes 
through  three  generations,  and  that  the  likeness,  instead  of  being  one  be- 
tween the  grandfather  and  grandson,  is  one  between  the  great-grand- 
father and  the  great-grandson. 


344  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

merely  the  impress  of  the  corporeal  form  of  our  fathers, 
but  their  thoughts  and  dispositions  too !  That  drop  of 
fluid,  where  does  it  find  room  for  that  infinite  multitude  of 
forms?  and  how  does  it  carry  those  resemblances  in  so 
strange  and  irregular  a  course  that  the  great-grandson  will 
answer  to  the  great-grandfather,  the  nephew  to  the  uncle  ?  " 
Montaigne's  amazement  is  reasonable,  nor  do  we  under- 
stand any  better  now  than  they  did  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury the  causes  of  these  singular  transmissions. 

Such  are  the  facts.  We  should  in  vain  attempt  to  get 
rid  of  their  character  by  multiplying  their  number,  or  by 
reasoning  upon  them.  In  the  region  of  psychology,  the 
instances  of  heredity  will  never  be  any  thing  but  excep- 
tions, compared  with  those  that  stand  for  the  opposite. 
Now,  if  they  are  exceptions,  by  what  right  can  heredity  be 
set  up  as  the  general  law  of  development  of  intellectual 
action  ?  By  what  right  is  it  asserted  that  in  this  matter 
heredity  is  the  rule,  and  non-heredity  the  exception  ?  Ri- 
bot  piles  up  the  most  ingenious  arguments  to  prop  up  that 
singular  proposition,  but  he  wastes  his  time  and  ability  in 
it.  Any  fashion  of  explaining  how  the  heredity  of  intel- 
lectual aptitudes  is  almost  uniformly  overcome  by  opposing 
or  disturbing  causes,  does  not  make  it  out  as  overcoming 
them.  Whatever  ingenious  reasons  may  be  found  for  con- 
solation because  the  fancied  sovereignty  of  heredity  is 
seen  to  be  brought  down  in  the  nature  of  things  to  a  very 
limited  control,  they  do  not  enlarge  that  control.  In  a 
word,  if  in  fact  non-heredity  does  have  a  far  greater  power 
and  sway  than  heredity,  the  question  is,  Why  does  Ribot 
adopt  a  formula  that  implies  the  reverse  ? 

Moreover,  does  not  the  spectacle  of  the  development  of 
civilization  by  itself  alone  clearly  prove  the  dominant  effi- 
cacy, in  man's  bosom,  of  a  permanent  tendency  toward 
transformation,  innovation,  change?  Unalterableness  in 
thoughts  and  permanence  in  habits  were  the  law  of  primi- 


HEREDITY   IN  PHYSIOLOGY,  IN   MEDICINE,  ETC.     345 

tive  races,  it  is  true,  and  they  still  are  the  law  of  savage 
tribes ;  but  nothing,  to  begin  with,  proves  that  heredity  is 
the  cause  of  this.  Such  a  reappearance,  during  a  longer 
or  shorter  tract  of  time,  of  societies  exactly  alike,  seems  to 
be  much  more  properly  attributable  to  the  potent  and  irre- 
sistible instinct  of  imitation,  and  to  positive  respect  for 
rites  and  customs  commanded  by  religion.  With  these 
tribes,  the  future  is  like  the  present,  and  the  present  re- 
peats the  past  only  because  the  same  unbending  rule,  the 
same  authority  and  the  same  tyrannical  superstition,  press 
on  all  alike.  Nothing  has  any  strength  or  respect  among 
such  people,  except  through  tradition,  and  tradition  among 
them  is  merely  the  honored  memory  of  a  will  once  of  old 
expressed  by  mysterious  powers.  When  the  English  de- 
sire to  interest  the  Hindoos  in  the  works  of  communication 
and  of  hygiene  that  they  are  effecting  in  India,  they  are 
even  at  this  day  forced  to  convince  them  first  that  the  useful- 
ness of  such  works  was  well  understood  by  the  Brahmans 
in  the  remotest  times,  so  difficult  is  it  for  that  ancient  race 
to  believe  that  a  rule  can  be  obligatory  unless  it  is  tradi- 
tional. 

At  all  events,  and  whatever  part  heredity  may  be  al- 
lowed in  this  matter,  it  is  certain  that  its  part  is  not  great, 
because  that  strange  homogeneity  of  primitive  races,  in- 
stead of  maintaining  and  strengthening  itself,  yields  sooner 
or  later  to  diversity.  Every  people  in  turn  is  invaded  by 
a  force  as  powerful  for  action  counter  to  that  of  hereditary 
influences  as  it  is  in  striking  off  the  iron  yoke  of  primal 
customs.  It  was  in  Greece,  nearly  three  thousand  years  ago, 
that  the  first  throe  of  that  force  shaped  and  worked  what 
Goethe  calls  "the  liberation  of  humanity."  Since  then, 
the  crossings  of  distinct  races,  new  needs  and  the  diversi- 
fied inventions  which  they  have  suggested  without  end,  the 
ideas  awakened  in  man  by  the  ever-growing  closeness  of 
his  contact  with  Nature,  have  brought  into  the  place  of 


346  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

primitive  simplicity  a  manifold  and  resistless  variability, 
of  which  the  present  condition  of  the  world  is  the  con- 
vincing proof. 

II. 

What  precedes  is  but  an  historic  refutation.  A  more 
direct  and  scientific  refutation  will,  at  the  same  time,  be 
more  positive  and  more  instructive.  After  proving  that 
heredity  has  not  exerted  exclusive  and  unbroken  influence, 
we  must  state  the  causes  which  act  together  with  and  in 
opposition  to  it.  We  must  point  out  the  continuous  and 
potent  activity  of  those  forces  which  tend,  as  we  have  said, 
to  modify,  to  alter,  and  complicate  thought,  feeling,  passion, 
manners,  and  customs. 

The  special  object  of  education  is  to  transmit  to  the 
child  the  sum  of  those  habits  to  which  he  will  need  to  con- 
form in  practical  life,  and  the  sum  of  those  acquirements 
which  will  be  essential  to  him  for  pursuing  his  calling ;  but 
it  must  begin  by  unfolding  in  him  those  powers  which  will 
enable  him  to  become  master  of  such  habits  and  of  such 
acquisitions.  It  teaches  the  child  to  speak,  to  move,  to  see, 
to  feel,  to  hear,  to  understand,  to  judge,  to  love.  Now  the 
influence  of  education,  counter  to  that  of  h eredity,  is  so 
great  that  the  former  of  itself,  in  most  cases,  has  the  power 
of  effecting  a  real  moral  and  psychological  likeness  be- 
tween parents  and  children.  If  heredity  positively  and 
irresistibly  brought  about  in  descendants  the  reproduction 
of  all  the  characteristics  constituting  the  personality  of 
their  ancestors,  education  would  be  of  no  use.  Since  edu- 
cation, and  that  a  protracted,  watchful,  and  toilsome  educa- 
tion, is  indispensable  to  bring  out  the  appearance  and  pro- 
duce the  development  of  the  child's  aptitudes  and  mental 
qualities,  we  must  needs  conclude  that  heredity  takes 
merely  a  secondary  part  in  this  wonderful  genesis  of  the 
moral  person.  This  argument  is  unanswerable.  It  would 


HEREDITY   IN  PHYSIOLOGY,  IN  MEDICINE,  ETC.     347 

be  highly  unscientific  to  deny  that  hereditary  influences 
are  manifest  in  predispositions  and  fixed  tendencies ;  but 
it  would  be  quite  as  inexact  to  maintain  that  these  im- 
plicitly contain  the  future  conditions  and  control  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  psychical  being. 

There  is  nothing  more  complicated  than  education.  We 
cannot  here  undertake  to  go  to  the  depths  of  its  general 
management,  which  has  been  the  subject  of  so  many  vol- 
umes. The  importance  everywhere  attributed  to  works 
on  the  training  of  children  is  in  itself  alone  a  protest 
against  the  abuse  of  theories  on  heredity.  A  few  novel 
details  as  to  one  of  the  main  instruments  of  education,  the 
instinct  of  imitation,  and  as  to  the  share  it  has  in  the  de- 
velopment of  individuals  and  races,  will  suffice  to  teach  an 
estimate  of  the  power  of  those  influences  alien  to  heredity. 

A  learned  English  historian,  Bagehot,  has  lately  written 
some  admirable  pages  to  prove  how  strong  an  influence  the 
unconscious  imitation  of  a  popular  character  or  type,  and 
the  general  favor  shown  to  this  character  or  this  type,  the 
traits  of  which  are  instinctively  copied  by  the  public,  exerts 
over  the  formation  of  customs  and  of  tastes,  while  at  the 
same  time  giving  the  key  to  periodical  revolutions  in  such 
tastes  and  customs.  In  his  view,  national  character  is 
nothing  else  than  local  character  which  has  made  its  way 
upward,  precisely  as  the  national  tongue  is  merely  the 
lasting  extension  of  a  local  dialect.  Nothing  is  more  real 
than  the  force  of  that  tendency  to  imitation,  in  consequence 
of  which,  in  industry,  the  arts,  literature,  and  manners,  cer- 
tain ways  of  doing,  devised  under  very  special ,  conditions, 
gain  general  prevalence,  and  very  soon  impress  themselves, 
at  first  on  the  unreflecting  and  obedient  multitude,  and 
then  upon  those  who  have  most  ability  to  test  and  resist 
them.  This  leads  to  the  remark  that  the  chosen  few  are 
almost  always  forced  to  follow  the  tastes  and  demands  of 
the  many,  under  'pain  of  being  neglected  or  despised.  A 


348  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

writer  conceives  a  style  which  the  public  enthusiastically 
welcomes.  He  strikes  a  vein.  He  breaks  in  the  readers 
of  his  books,  the  hearers  of  his  plays,  to  this  style,  be  it 
good  or  bad ;  and  we  see  for  a  time  all  authors  sentenced, 
if  they  would  succeed,  to  imitate  the  lucky  inventor.  Thus, 
even  if  there  were  no  natural  or  instinctive  imitation,  there 
would  be  interested  or  compulsory  imitation.  The  founder 
of  the  Times  was  asked  one  day  how  it  happened  that  all 
the  articles  in  that  paper  seemed  to  come  from  the  same 
hand.  "  Oh,"  he  answered,  "  there  is  always  one  editor 
superior  to  the  rest,  and  all  the  others  imitate  him." 

The  whole  history  of  religions  is  full  of  instances  prov- 
ing to  what  extent  men  are  led,  not  by  reasonings,  but  by 
examples,  and  what  a  disposition  they  have  to  repeat  what 
they  have  seen  or  heard,  to  govern  their  lives  in  accordance 
\vith  the  striking  or  successful  models  they  have  in  view. 
Many  a  winning  cause,  famous  for  the  persuasive  genius  of 
its  advocates,  owes  its  tiiumph  rather  to  that  hidden  impulse 
which  urges  us  irresistibly  to  imitation  of  others.  Is  not  this 
potency  of  surroundings  in  producing  by  degrees  radical 
changes  in  habits,  opinions,  and  even  in  creeds,  manifest 
also  in  the  scene  of  political  society  ?  Is  there  any  thing 
easier  than  for  a  man,  who  has  gained  control  over  the  mul- 
titude, to  bring  it  round  to  his  feelings,  his  thoughts,  his 
visions  ?  Is  not  this  as  strikingly  and  as  distinctly  taught 
by  the  daily  experience  in  the  education  of  children  ?  We 
often  remark  in  a  school  that  the  outward  characteristics, 
the  tone,  the  ways,  the  amusements,  change  from  year  to 
year.  It  is  because  some  leading  spirits,  two  or  three  chil- 
dren who  had  an  ascendency,  have  gone.  Others  have 
come,  and  every  thing  is  altered.  As  the  models  change, 
the  copies  change  too.  New  things  are  praised,  and  differ- 
ent things  are  ridiculed.  The  instinct  of  imitation  is  spe- 
cially developed  among  men  who  are  wanting  in  education 
or  civilization.  Savages  copy  quicker  and  better  than  Eu- 


HEREDITY   IN  PHYSIOLOGY,  IN  MEDICINE,  ETC.     349 

ropeans.  Like  children,  they  are  natural  mimics,  and  can- 
not refrain  from  aping  what  is  done  in  their  presence. 
Their  mind  supplies  nothing  that  can  resist  that  inclination 
to  imitate.  Every  enlightened  man  has  within  himself  a 
lar.ge  reserve  of  ideas  toward  which  he  can  turn  his  mind ; 
that  resource  does  not  exist  for  the  savage  and  the  child. 
The  occurrences  that  take  place  before  them  are  their  pe- 
culiar life.  They  live  upon  what  they  see  and  hear.  They 
are  the  sport  of  external  things.  In  civilized  nations,  un- 
cultivated people  are  in  the  same  condition.  Send  a  cham- 
bermaid and  a  philosopher  to  a  country  of  the  language 
of  which  both  are  ignorant,  it  is  likely  that  the  girl  will 
learn  it  before  the  philosopher  does.  He  has  something 
else  to  do.  He  can  live  with  his  thoughts,  but  she,  unless 
she  is  talking,  is  lost.  The  instinct  of  imitation  is  in  in- 
verse ratio  to  the  power  of  mental  abstraction. 

We  learn  from  these  details  that  the  potent  and  instinc- 
tive force  of  doing  as  others  do,  which  plays  so  great  a  part 
in  the  education  of  persons  and  of  races,  differs  wholly  from 
heredity.  It  may  act,  and  it  does  act,  concurrently  with 
hereditary  impulses,  but  it  works  much  oftener  in  an  inde- 
pendent and  even  a  contrary  fashion.  This  is  quite  as 
true  of  another  force,  a  bolder  rival  and  stronger  opponent 
of  heredity,  the  work  of  which  is  next  to  be  studied :  we 
mean  personality. 

Eminently  the  instrument  of  free  invention,  the  unfail- 
ing spring  of  the  voluntary  action  that  makes  things  new, 
the  individual  personality  of  the  soul,  may  be  designated, 
in  opposition  to  the  term  heredity,  by  the  name  innateness. 
To  give  an  idea  of  the  power  of  innateness  as  compared 
with  that  of  heredity,  lists  might  be  drawn  up,  containing 
the  instances  in  which  the  manifestation  of  various  passions 
or  various  talents  does  not  proceed  from  ancestors,  in  which 
the  individual  is  born  distinct  from  those  who  went  before 
him,  or  has  made  himself  distinct  from  them  by  the  reac- 


350  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

tion  of  his  own  will.  Such  lists  would  be  endless,  because, 
contrary  to  the  opinion  of  those  who  advocate  absolute 
heredity,  it  is  innateness,  it  is  personal  activity,  which  is 
the  general  rule  in  the  unfolding  of  mind.  On  the  whole 
(and  this  is  an  essential  point),  heredity  has  its  root  in  in- 
nateness ;  for,  after  all  those  aptitudes  and  those  qualities 
which  ancestors  transmit,  beginning  at  a  certain  fixed  time 
and  for  a  longer  or  shorter  continuance,  to  their  descend- 
ants, these  very  aptitudes  and  qualities  necessarily  come  to 
birth  at  such  time  through  the  spontaneous  effort  of  a  more 
or  less  independent  will.  On  the  one  hand,  we  are  bid  to 
notice  hysterical,  epileptic,  and  insane  people ;  and,  on  the 
other,  painters,  musicians,  and  poets,  who  evidently  get 
from  their  parents  the  activity,  in  doing  well  or  ill,  which 
characterizes  them.  True,  doubtless,  but  the  point  is  now 
to  learn  whence  the  parents  themselves  in  their  turn  got 
it,  and  whether  we  must  not  rest  in  our  retrospective  ex- 
amination of  ancestry  at  some  point  at  which  innateness 
was  sovereign.  This  supremacy  is  the  less  disputable,  in- 
asmuch as  it  soon  reappears  too  in  the  descendants.  The 
effects  of  heredity  come  to  an  end,  just  as  they  once  made 
a  beginning.  At  the  outset  they  prevail  over  innateness, 
whose  influence  they  suspend ;  then  they  run  out,  and  the 
latter  regains  its  rights.  Thus  innateness  is  the  enduring 
and  continuous  force,  while  heredity  is  the  intermittent 
and  perishing  force.  Human  nature,  studied  in  its  course 
through  ages,  is  a  succession  of  free  souls,  the  more  free 
in  the  degree  that  they  have  less  need,  for  will  and  action, 
of  aid  from  mechanical  or  organic  powers.  When  they  do 
need  any  such  aid,  they  resign  a  part  of  their  innate  lib- 
erty to  the  sway  of  the  blind  influences  of  heredity.  Yet, 
even  with  respect  to  the  origin  of  aesthetic  aptitudes,  in- 
nateness keeps  its  predominance. 

In  the  study  of  the  history  of  famous  men,  how  number- 
less are  the  instances  we  find  of  marvelous  memories,  glow- 


HEREDITY  IN  PHYSIOLOGY,  IN   MEDICINE,  ETC.     351 

ing  imaginations,  extraordinary  capacities  for  the  arts,  for 
poetry,  for  composition,  which  are  not  in  the  slightest  de- 
gree derived  from  transmission !  We  need  not  look  very 
far  for  proofs.  Lamartine,  .Alfred  de  Musset,  Meyerbeer, 
Ingres,  Delacroix,  Merimee,  Henry  Regnault,1  not  to  in- 
stance the  living,  exhibited  talents  for  which  they  are  not 
in  the  least  indebted  to  their  forefathers.  The  history  of 
savants,  properly  so  called,  shows  us  the  share  of  heredity 
still  further  reduced.  Families  of  savants  are  cited.  How 
many  of  them  are  there  ?  A  dozen  at  most.  On  the  other 
hand,  how  many  famous  savants  are  there  among  whose 
forefathers  we  find  either  mere  commonplace  people,  or 
else  people  noted  for  talents  very  different  from  those  that 
distinguish  the  savant!  Where  are  the  ancestral  influ- 
ences that  have  formed  a  Cuvier,  a  Biot,  a  Fresnel,  a  Magen- 
die,  an  Ampere,  a  Blainville,  a  Gay-Lussac  ?  It  is  plain 
that  in  this  matter  innateness  and  education  have  taken  the 
chief  part.  Neither  is  the  life  of  literary  men  at  all  more 
accordant  with  the  claims  of  the  thorough  partisans  of  he- 
redity. 

1 "  I  believe  that  the  sun  which  shines  on  you  is  not  the  same  as  ours," 
he  wrote  from  Tangiers,  "  and  I  am  terrified  on  seeing  afar  the  moment 
when  I  must  once  again  in  Europe  look  on  the  mournful  aspect  of  houses 
and  crowds ;  but  before  returning  thither  I  intend  to  make  the  real 
Moors  live  once  again — then  Tunis,  Egypt,  India.  I  shall  soar  from  en- 
thusiasm to  enthusiasm,  I  shall  be  intoxicated  with  wonders,  until,  trans- 
ported and  ecstatic,  I  shall  be  able  to  fall  back  again  into  our  dull  and 
commonplace  world,  without  fearing  lest  my  eyes  lose  the  light  they  will 
have  drunk  in  for  two  or  three  years.  Whenever,  once  more  in  Paris,  I 
shall  long  for  clear  vision,  I  shall  need  only  to  close  my  eyes,  and  then 
Moriscos,  Fellahs,  Hindoos,  granite  colossi,  white-marble  elephants,  fairy 
palaces,  plains  of  gold  and  lakes  of  azure,  and  diamond  cities,  the  whole 
East  will  pass  again  in  procession  before  me.  Oh,  what  an  intoxication 
is  light ! " — "  Correspondence  of  Henry  Regnault,"  collected  by  M.  Ar- 
thur Duparc,  1872. 

Assuredly  these  thoughts  and  emotions  were  not  hereditary  in  Henry 
Regnault. 


352  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

The  case  in  which  innateness  seems  especially  trium- 
phant is  that  of  the  philosophers.  The  authors  give  no  lists 
of  philosophers  who  inherited  from  their  forefathers  apti- 
tudes for  speculation.  There,  is  here  a  series  of  expressly 
negative  facts  which  they  pass  over  in  silence,  and  to  which 
sufficient  attention  is  not  usually  paid.  Metaphysicians, 
precisely  because  the  spiritual  element  alone  works  in  them, 
are  freed  from  all  influences  of  hereditary  predestination. 
That  loses  its  energy  just  in  proportion  as  there  is  occasion 
for  transmitting  such  qualities  as  are  less  physiological 
and  more  psychological.  Now,  what  can  be  more  psycho- 
logical, what  more  free  from  elements  mixed  with  sense,  and 
factors  that  work  mechanically,  than  the  mind  of  a  specula- 
tive philosopher  ?  In  truth,  great  metaphysicians  had  no  an- 
cestors, and  have  left  no  posterity.  The  philosophic  genius 
has  always  appeared  completely  individual,  inalienable,  and 
untransmissible.  There  is  not  a  single  renowned  thinker  in 
whose  ascending  or  descending  line  can  be  found  the  warn- 
ing forerunner  or  the  reminder  of  the  eminent  capabilities 
that  made  his  fame.  Descartes  and  Newton,  Leibnitz  and 
Spinoza,  Diderot  and  Hume,  Kant  and  Maine  du  Biran, 
Cousin  and  Jouffroy,  have  neither  ancestors  nor  posterity. 

Such  is  innateness.  To  estimate  exactly  its  function, 
we  should  need  to  ascertain  in  a  general  way  and  in  its  re- 
lations with  the  temperament,  the  training,  the  cosmic  and 
social  medium,  etc.,  the  production  and  development  of  those 
capacities  by  which  some  man  of  a  high  order  is  clearly 
differenced  from  his  ancestors ;  and  we  should  need  to 
bring  into  one  view,  and  as  far  as  possible  to  coordinate, 
those  characteristic  elements  which  make  up  the  very  es- 
sence of  personality  and  of  individuality,  those  elements 
of  bold  departure  from  the  beaten  track,  of  plenary  self- 
dependence,  so  mighty  and  so  amazing,  by  which  genius 
asserts  itself.  We  should  then  see  how,  in  almost  all  in- 
stances, eminent  capacities  are  so  inmost  to  those  who  dis- 


HEREDITY  IN  PHYSIOLOGY,  IN  MEDICINE,  ETC.     353 

play  them,  so  deep  and  instinct  with  life,  that  training  and 
discipline,  instead  of  aiding  them,  impede  their  improve- 
ment. We  should  discover  in  the  man  of  genius  a  self- 
reliant  precocity,  an  adventurous  ardor,  a  powerful  con- 
viction of  his  mission,  a  pride  lifting  him  above  prejudices 
of  sect  and  party  ambitions,  and  attaching  him  solely  to 
the  object  of  his  thoughts,  which  alone  gives  life  a  charm 
for  him.  Even  though  his  daily  needs  compel  him  to  inter- 
course with  men,  the  world  is  for  him  only  a  peopled  desert 
in  which  his  soul  dwells  apart. 

A  part  of  the  materials  for  such  a  study  exists ;  it  may 
be  sought  in  the  biographies  prepared  by  the  secretaries 
of  the  great  academies  during  the  last  two  hundred  years, 
and  in  the  autobiographical  memoirs  left  by  many  famous 
men.  A  learned  and  ingenious  Russian  writer,  Wechnia- 
kof,  has  lately  published  several  papers,  in  which  he  inves- 
tigates from  this  point  of  view  the  anthropological  and  so- 
ciological peculiarities  that  have  affected  the  individual 
development  of  original  geniuses.  These  little  works,  un- 
fortunately, do  not  form  a  complete  whole ;  yet  nothing 
could  be  more  curious  and  useful  than  a  treatise  on  innate- 
ness. 

The  group  of  all  the  causes  of  diversity,  heterogeneity, 
and  innovation,  which  are  working  upon  the  human  race  in 
opposition  to  the  principles  of  simplicity,  homogeneity,  and 
conservation,  may  be  described  in  a  single  word,  that  of 
evolution  or  progress.  Regarded  within  the  limits  of  our 
actual  observation,  blind  Nature  remains  identically  ever 
the  same.  It  is,  to-day,  in  its  totality,  what  it  was  in 
Homer's  time,  and  what  it  will  assuredly  be  many  ages 
hence.  The  same  skies  exist,  the  same  oceans,  the  same 
mountains,  forests,  and  flowers.  Man,  on  the  contrary,  is 
ceaselessly  changing.  Generations  follow  and  do  not  re- 
semble each  other.  They  are,  in  relation  to  their  beliefs, 
their  arts,  their  wants,  in  a  state  of  rapid  and  constant 
16 


354  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

transformation.  Nations,  like  individuals,  have  their  times 
of  greatness  and  of  decay.  Looking  on  the  face  of  Nature 
in  Greece,  Childe  Harold  exclaims : 

"  Yet  are  thy  skies  as  blue,  thy  crags  as  wild  ; 
Sweet  are  thy  groves,  and  verdant  are  thy  fields  ; 
Thine  olive  ripe  as  when  Minerva  smiled, 
And  still  his  honeyed  wealth  Hymettus  yields  ; 
There  the  blithe  bee  his  fragrant  fortress  builds, 
The  free-born  wanderer  of  thy  mountain  air ; 
Apollo  still  thy  long,  long  summer  gilds, 
Still  in  his  beam  Mendeli's  marbles  glare  ; 
Art,  glory,  freedom  fail,  but  Nature  still  is  fair." 

We  might  multiply  endlessly  these  historic  contrasts 
between  the  unchangeableness  of  that  general  determinism 
that  rules  in  Nature  and  the  ceaseless  movement  of  human 
freedom  and  inventiveness,  the  eternal  struggle  of  the  soul 
to  wrench  itself  from  the  grip  of  fatality.  History  is  mere- 
ly the  story  of  what  that  movement  and  struggle  have 
brought  forth  in  the  ages.  It  is  a  lengthened  drama, 
through  which  the  good  genius  of  freedom  strives  for  vic- 
tory with  the  evil  genius  of  brute  force,  in  which,  under 
the  divine  eye  and  with  divine  aid,  through  lingering  and 
suffering,  triumph  is  won  for  the  spirit  which  seeks,  dis- 
covers, invents,  creates,  loves,  and  worships. 

III. 

In  the  first  part  of  this  essay,  we  proved  the  existence 
of  the  facts  of  heredity,  and  pointed  out  the  part  they  take 
in  the  indefinite  reproduction  of  physiological  and  psycho- 
logical characteristics  in  man.  In  the  second,  we  noted 
and  examined  the  causes  that  work  in  opposition  to  the 
more  or  less  imperious  impulses  of  Nature  and  to  the  re- 
straints of  mechanical  structure.  It  is  well  now  to  state 
some  practical  conclusions  as  to  the  use  that  may  be  made 
of  these  kinds  of  knowledge  for  the  improvement  of  the  race. 


HEREDITY   IN  PHYSIOLOGY,  IN  MEDICINE,  ETC.     355 

Homer's  valiant  warriors  invoked  the  name  of  their 
fathers  and  forefathers  and  the  noble  blood  they  inherited. 
It  was  a  high  instinct,  and  men  who  have  good  claims  to 
boast  of  their  ancestors  will  always  have  the  better  chance 
to  deserve  the  gratitude  of  their  posterity  too.  In  fact, 
the  phenomena  of  heredity  justify  the  belief  that  parents, 
endowed  with  bodily  and  mental  excellence,  are  in  the  best 
conditions  for  procreating  descendants  who  shall  be  like 
them. 

What  measures,  then,  should  be  resorted  to  to  make 
sure  of  fortunate  alliances  able  to  originate  children  dis- 
tinguished in  physical  and  moral  respects  ?  The  delicacy 
of  this  question  may  be  readily  seen,  and  we  can  answer  it 
here  only  in  a  very  general  way,  relying  particularly  on  an 
original  essay,  yet  unpublished,  by  our  distinguished  sur- 
geon, S4dillot,  who  devotes  the  leisure  of  his  honored  re- 
tirement to  studies  on  the  means  of  improving  the  race. 
Se"dillot  begins  with  the  suggestion  that  very  good  infor- 
mation as  to  an  individual's  quality  may  be  gained  by  con- 
sulting his  genealogy — the  history  of  his  forefathers  for 
four  or  five  generations,  examined  from  the  point  of  view 
of  intelligence,  morality,  vigor,  health,  longevity,  social 
position,  contains  potentially  a  part  of  his  own  history. 
An  examination  of  the  head  may  also  give  hints  of  the 
greatest  value.  It  was  settled  long  before  Gall's  time, 
and  it  continues  settled,  apart  from  Gall's  exaggerations, 
that  the  shape  of  the  head  betrays  to  some  extent  the  de- 
gree of  mental  worth  in  the  man.  From  the  remotest 
antiquity  popular  good  sense  had  noticed  the  relation  ex- 
isting between  a  very  large  head  and  eminent  abilities, 
and  language  is  full  of  expressions  witnessing  to  the 
reality  of  that  relation.  Pericles  of  old  excited  the  won- 
der of  the  Athenians  on  account  of  the  extraordinary  size 
of  his  head.  Cromwell,  Descartes,  Leibnitz,  Voltaire,  By- 
ron, Goethe,  Talleyrand,  Napoleon,  Cuvier,  etc.,  had  very 


356  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

large  heads.  We  know  that  Cuvier's  brain  weighed  1,829 
grammes  (64  -{-  oz.),  while  the  mean  weight  of  the  brain 
among  Europeans,  as  Broca  states,  is  from  1,350  to  1,400 
grammes  (48  -j-  to  50  oz.).  Sedillot  regrets  that  we  do 
not  have,  and  wishes  that  pains  were  taken  to  obtain,  the 
measure  of  the  different  dimensions  of  the  skull  among 
men  conspicuous  for  marked  capacities,  in  order  to  study 
the  very  noteworthy  relations  existing  between  those  di- 
mensions and  such  capacities.  At  least  we  know,  in  a 
general  way,  what  characteristics  and  what  proportions  in 
the  skull  correspond  with  the  various  degrees  of  cerebral 
activity.  Almost  all  anthropologists  are  aware  that  the  man 
whose  head  does  not  measure  fifty  centimetres  (19.68  inch- 
es) in  horizontal  circumference  is  almost  doomed  to  medioc- 
rity, and  that  one  in  whom  that  measurement  equals  or  ex- 
ceeds fifty-eight  centimetres  (22.83  inches)  has  many  chances 
to  become  quite  eminent.  It  is  true,  some  instances  of 
distinguished  men  with  small  heads  are  mentioned,  but, 
then,  the  case  is  that  of  men  eminent  in  some  very  narrow 
specialty.  These  dimensions,  however,  form  only  one  of 
the  external  signs  by  which  the  intellectual  quality  of  the 
individual  may  be  determined  with  some  accuracy.  We 
must  study  besides  these  the  general  shape  and  the  rela- 
tive proportions  of  the  different  regions  of  the  cranium, 
that  is  to  say,  the  harmony  which  is  called  beauty.  An 
easy  way,  Sedillot  thinks,  to  judge  of  the  conformation  of 
the  head,  is  to  look  at  it  from  the  side  or  in  profile,  and 
slightly  back  from  the  front  of  it.  This  strikingly  brings 
out  the  relations  of  the  height  and  breadth  of  the  forehead 
and  temples  with  the  face,  and  shows  clearly  the  relative 
proportions  between  the  anterior  or  frontal  contour  of  the 
head  and  the  occipital  or  posterior  one.  Any  one  who  has 
the  eyebrow  arches  prominent,  the  temples  open,  straight 
or  almost  vertical,  and  high,  whose  forehead  is  broad  and 
high,  and  his  expression  of  countenance  neither  wandering 


HEREDITY  IN  PHYSIOLOGY,  IN  MEDICINE,  ETC.      357 

nor  sleepy,  may  be  regarded  in  general  as  presenting  a 
really  human  type,  as  the  mask  of  a  soul  capable  of  doing 
honor  to  his  species.  The  story  is  told  of  an  Englishman, 
a  friend  of  Shakespeare,  who  once  sent  a  groom  into  an 
inn  to  look  for  him.  "  How  shall  I  know  him  ?  "  the  ser- 
vant said.  "  Nothing  is  easier,"  was  the  answer.  "  Every 
face  looks  something  like  some  animal's ;  but,  when  you  see 
Shakespeare,  you  will  say, '  There  is  the  man.9 "  Yes,  man 
imagined  in  the  fullness  of  his  harmonious  beauty ;  that 
is  the  ideal  toward  the  realization  of  which  the  efforts  of 
our  present  imperfect  humanity  should  strive,  and  it  is  full 
time  that  we  should  neglect  no  means  for  bringing  our- 
selves, by  the  skillful  management  of  heredity,  that  is,  by 
propagation  in  a  sound  and  wise  way,  nearer  to  a  human 
race  from  which  the  last  traces  of  animalism  shall  have 
vanished,  and  among  whom  man  shall  be  less  rare. 

What  constitutes  the  superiority  of  the  English  aristoc- 
racy ?  It  is  the  constant  interest  they  are  animated  by  to 
endow  their  descendants  with  the  best  bodily,  mental,  and 
moral  qualities.  An  Englishman  does  not  marry  from 
fancy  or  passion  ;  he  marries  under  the  conditions  fittest  to 
insure  his  children's  happiness,  for  he  knows  that  his  own 
and  the  honor  of  his  name  depend  on  this.  The  respect 
with  which  young  English  women  are  surrounded,  the 
honorable  freedom  they  enjoy,  the  little  consequence  that 
is  attached  to  their  fortune,  and  the  esteem  in  which  their 
personal  merit  is  held,  are  all  so  many  causes  for  the  in- 
crease among  that  people  of  happy  marriages,  and  conse- 
quently for  the  growing  vigor  of  their  population.  This  is 
one  of  the  grand  secrets  of  improvement  through  heredity. 
Men,  instead  of  requiring  wealth  with  their  brides,  must 
ask  for  beauty,  character,  and  virtue.  So  long  as  they  have 
no  fear  of  intermarrying  with  women  who  are  feeble,  or  want- 
ing in  solid  qualities,  the  race  will  decline  and  grow  worth- 
less, and  the  like  deplorable  result  follows  from  the  mar- 


358  NATURE  AND   LIFE. 

riage  of  women  of  distinction  and  high  natural  qualities 
with  men  more  or  less  degraded.  Happily,  the  tact  and 
dignity  instinctive  in  women,  the  natural  sympathy  they 
feel  for  superior  natures,  very  often  prevent  them  from 
stooping  to  humiliating  or  unsafe  marriages,  and  almost 
always  protect  them  from  ill-assorted  ones.  "  Instead  of 
yielding  to  passionate  attractions,"  says  Sedillot,  "  which 
easily  disturb  the  judgment,  let  one  ask,  on  seeing  an 
agreeable  person,  whether  one  would  wish  to  have  sons  and 
daughters  like  her,  and  the  frequency  of  negative  answers 
would  be  surprising.  Certainly  it  would  hardly  be  reason- 
able to  give  up  the  advantages  of  the  present  for  those  of 
an  uncertain  futurity,  but  wisdom  bids  us  reconcile  them 
both,  remembering  the  swiftness  with  which  time  flies,  and 
the  little  worth  of  the  passing  hour,  compared  with  the 
hopes  and  enjoyments  of  the  future."  Se'dillot  adds  that, 
in  ordinary  times,  hygienic  care  and  the  moral  evidence  of 
the  advantages  of  health  and  intelligence  will  suffice  for 
the  regeneration  of  a  people.  Unfortunately,  France  needs 
a  more  powerful  and  effectual  source  of  elasticity,  if  she 
would  rise  again.  She  must  bathe  in  the  very  spring  of 
restoration  and  of  life.  She  must  plan  the  readiest  means 
for  preparing  a  future  of  energy  and  virtue  for  the  genera- 
tions that  are  coming  forward.  At  another  time  it  would 
have  perhaps  seemed  difficult  or  unwise  to  introduce  into 
discussions  relating  to  human  reproduction  such  calcula- 
tions and  such  valuations  as  resemble  those  of  zootechny, 
the  art  that  has  so  long  made  practical  use  of  selection. 
At  this  day  such  refined  scruples  must  vanish  before  the 
warnings  of  necessity,  telling  us  with  its  most  solemn  and 
earnest  voice  that  not  one  blunder  more  must  be  committed.1 

1  With  respect  to  the  outward  indications  that  may  give  some  idea  of 
capacities,  the  remarkable  researches  of  Quetelet  deserve  to  be  con- 
sulted, condensed  in  the  late  work  published  by  him  under  the  title  of 
"  Anthropometry." 


HEREDITY  IN  PHYSIOLOGY,  IN  MEDICINE,  ETC.     359 

Upon  this  point  the  means  should  be  indicated  for 
checking  and  diminishing  as  much  as  possible  that  per- 
sistent morbid  heredity  which  is  so  formidable  an  impedi- 
ment to  improvement.  The  preventive  or  prophylactic 
measures  that  may  properly  be  used  in  staying  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  germs  of  disease  must,  of  course,  depend  on 
the  nature  of  those  germs.  A  mother  suffering  from 
phthisis,  or  predisposed  to  tubercles,  should  not  suckle 
her  child,  but  trust  it  to  a  good  nurse.  To  persons  born 
of  consumptive  parents,  a  highly-animalized  regime  is 
unsuitable ;  white  meats  and  food  without  fat  are  better 
adapted  for  them.  As  regards  a  pursuit,  such  persons  must 
carefully  avoid  those  that  would  expose  them  to  inhaling 
dust,  to  sudden  changes  of  heat  and  cold,  or  to  the  con- 
stant exercise  of  the  voice.  Residence  at  places  on  the 
southern  seaboard,  and  in  regions  where  phthisis  is  uncom- 
mon, is  the  best  preventive  of  that  formidable  disease. 
The  essential  things  for  persons  predisposed  to  scrofula 
are  pure  air,  substantial  tonic  nourishment,  and  the  mari- 
time atmosphere  of  the  northwest  of  Europe.  Those  who 
are  threatened  with  gout  or  gravel  must  restrict  them- 
selves to  rigid  temperance,  and  take  much  exercise.  Reg- 
ularity and  uniformity  of  living  are  the  rule  for  those  with 
a  tendency  to  cancer.  Persons  who  count  epileptics  among 
their  ancestors  require  the  most  watchful  attention.  Quiet 
in  all  their  ways  of  life  must  be  assured  them,  all  excess  be 
forbidden,  all  fatigue  shunned,  all  emotions  kept  at  a  dis- 
tance ;  in  a  word,  every  thing  that  can  excite  must  be  put 
out  of  their  way.  Those  who  are  disposed  to  insanity 
should  be  treated  in  a  similar  way,  that  is,  with  great 
gentleness.  Their 'passions  must  be  lulled  to  sleep.  The 
existence  most  suitable  for  them  is  one  requiring  them  to 
put  forth  no  strong  mental  action,  and  free  from  exciting 
hopes  of  fortune  or  fame.  To  check  or  to  destroy  the 
development  of  morbid  germs  in  the  constitution  of  such 


360  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

t  persons  themselves,  is  but  the  secondary  point  in  these 
cases;  the  main  one  is  to  prevent  the  transmission  of  these 
germs  to  new  generations.  To  be  certain  of  this  result,  it 
is  important  not  only  to  make  those  marriages  conformed 
to  the  laws  of  health  and  of  morality  easier  and  more 
common,  but,  still  further,  to  thwart  such  unions  as  can  only 
produce  children  wretched  in  body  and  mind.  Physicians 
should  use  all  their  influence  to  forbid  marriage  between 
two  persons  both  with  strong  constitutional  tendencies 
toward  the  various  nerve-disorders,  toward  tubercles,  scrof- 
ula, etc.  When  one  of  two  such  persons  has  morbid  he- 
reditary antecedents,  the  physician  should  at  least  urge 
the  necessity  of  union  between  the  unsound  person  and  a 
husband  or  wife  in  a  perfect  state  of  health,  of  superior 
strength  and  sexuality,  and,  above  all,  different  in  temper- 
ament. In  this  way  we  should  at  least  lessen  those 
chances  of  hereditary  contamination  to  which  it  would  be 
far  better  not  to  expose  one's  offspring  at  all.  This  is  too 
delicate  a  subject  to  be  urged  here.  Yet  something  should 
be  said  of  marriages  between  blood  relations,  which  have 
occasioned  warm  controversies  of  late  years.  Some  phy- 
sicians and  anthropologists,  Broca  and  Bertillon  among  the 
rest,  maintain  that  the  purest  and  least  mixed  races  resist 
causes  of  degeneracy  better  than  crossed  races.  In  their 
view,  the  bad  results  attributed  to  consanguinity  depend 
on  agencies  altogether  foreign  to  it,  mainly  upon  ancestral 
hereditary  disorders.  Trousseau  and  Boudin,  on  their  side, 
maintain  that  unions  between  persons  of  the  same  family 
often  produce  unsound  offspring,  insane,  and  idiotic.  The 
discussion  seems  at  the  present  time  to  be  settled  in  favor 
of  the  partisans  of  the  former  opinion.  "  Quite  lately,  again, 
Auguste  Voisin  decided,  after  inquiring  among  the  con- 
nections of  more  than  fifteen  hundred  patients  at  Bicetre 
and  la  Salpetriere,  that  the  condition  of  none  of  those  suf- 
ferers could  be  charged  upon  the  effect  of  consanguinity. 


HEREDITY  IN  PHYSIOLOGY,  IN  MEDICINE,  ETC.     361 

If  that  were  so  decisive  a  cause  of  degeneracy,  its  influence 
must  have  been  seen  among  that  multitude  of  the  insane 
and  idiotic. 

At  any  rate,  whatever  exaggeration  there  may  be 
among  those  who  theorize  on  heredity,  it  has  an  indisput- 
able share  in  the  production  of  temperament  and  character, 
and  the  reality  of  that  fact  justifies  every  practice  of  a  kind 
calculated  to  aid  the  transmission  of  the  best  tendencies. 
At  Rome,  the  most  distinguished  and  respected  women 
sometimes,  with  their  husbands'  consent,  contributed  to 
some  other  family  the  superior  qualities  of  their  blood. 
Quintus  Hortensius,  Cato's  friend  and  admirer,  not  succeed- 
ing in  gaining  his  daughter  Pereia,  asked  for  his  wife,  Mar- 
cia,  and  Cato  gave  her  up  to  him.  The  coarseness  of  such 
usages  shocks  our  sense  of  delicacy,  but  it  is  easily  ex- 
plained by  the  desire  always  felt  by  the  head  of  a  Roman 
family  to  make  sure  in  his  descendants  of  the  most  manly 
vigor  and  the  highest  virtues.  In  our  old  French  society,  the 
continuance  of  masterships,  of  offices  and  professions  in  tte 
same  families  in  which  they  were  handed  down  from  father 
to  son,  originated  in  and  was  founded  on  the  unconscious 
remarking  of  hereditary  transmission  of  aptitudes;  and 
Sedillot  regrets  that  the  overturnings  in  modern  societies 
have  banished  that  wholesome  tradition  which  held  the  son 
morally  bound,  in  all  degrees  of  the  social  scale,  to  take 
the  father's  place.  This  is  another  recollection  which 
should  not  be  left  out  of  view  by  races  desirous  of  their  own 
improvement. 

Something  which  should  be  equally  kept  in  view,  and 
which  is  yet  more  easy  of  appreciation,  is  the  system  of 
precepts  of  a  watchful  and  intelligent  education.  In  this 
respect  those  men  who  are  most  concerned  for  the  future 
of  France  have  now  but  one  opinion  :  the  new  generations 
must  be  built  up  by  giving  more  room  for  bodily  exercises, 
and  by  loading  children  less  with  labors  ruinous  to  their 


362  NATURE  AND  LIFE. 

health.  It  is  not  a  question  about  disturbing  classical 
studies  or  the  humanities,  which  will  continue  to  be  the 
chief  element  of  moral  culture ;  it  is  a  question  merely  of 
finding  out  whether  children  might  not  gain  an  acquaint- 
ance with  the  treasures  of  Latin  and  Greek  learning  a  lit- 
tle more  quickly  and  more  thoroughly,  and  at  the  same 
time  live  in  a  little  closer  intercourse  with  modern  in- 
terests. Many  of  those  things  are  never  taught  them, 
though  they  are  such  as  might  be  taught  them  with  great 
advantage  to  their  mental  development.  This  is  not  the 
place  to  dwell  upon  the  subject ;  but  it  does  seem,  and 
nobody  doubts  it,  that  by  a  vigorous  training,  one  that 
aims  boldly  at  renovation,  it  might  be  possible,  if  not,  as 
Leibnitz  asserted,  to  change  the  nature  of  a  people,  at  least 
to  destroy  most  of  those  causes  of  decline  to  which  a  people 
surrenders  itself  when  uncorrected  by  suitable  discipline. 

The  conviction  that  it  is  possible  actively  to  counter- 
vail the  dangerous  tendencies  of  heredity,  and  to  triumph 
over  its  ruinous  domination,  at  least  in  the  region  of  morals, 
is,  moreover,  one  of  the  most  wholesome  that  could  gain 
currency  and  credit  in  the  world.  To  will  strongly,  is  of 
itself  the  power  to  do.  Even  though  it  were  not  so  easy 
as  it  really  is  to  quell  those  blind  forces  by  the  mere  ascen- 
dency of  a  firm  and  enlightened  will,  there  still  would  be 
reasons  for  persuading  men  that  they  are  their  own  masters 
as  to  modifying  and  correcting  themselves ;  that  they  are 
not  the  playthings  of  an  unbending  fate,  and  that  they 
have  no  right  to  give  way  to  their  evil  instincts  without 
resistance  and  without  remorse.  Let  us  have  faith  in  the 
might  of  heredity  in  so  far  as  it  can  become  a  means  of 
melioration  and  free  improvement.  Let  us  have  no  faith 
in  it  if  it  is  averred  to  exert  so  absolute  a  tyranny  that  it 
would  be  folly  to  refuse  submission.  Education  should  not 
only  take  the  improvement  of  men  for  its  aim,  it  should  also 
assume  the  task  of  animating  them  with  a  passion  for  ira- 


HEREDITY  IN  PHYSIOLOGY,  IN  MEDICINE,  ETC.     363 

provement  by  convincing  them  that  they  can  be  made  bet- 
ter. United  with  judicious  cultivation  of  heredity  when 
working  for  good,  education  thus  conquers  heredity  in  its 
evil  working,  and  gives  new  life  to  the  generations. 

Yet  we  must  not  concede  to  education  an  exaggerated 
influence,  nor  assume  that  it  can  by  itself  alone  produce 
superior  characters  of  great  eminence.  It  has,  like  hered- 
ity itself,  but  a  limited  power.  Genius  eludes  the  one,  as 
it  does  the  other.  Genius,  the  most  whole  and  perfect  ex- 
pression of  the  mind  regarded  as  a  free  creative  force, 
combines  in  one  immortal  consolation  with  eternal  despair 
for  our  nature.  It  is  a  solace,  because  it  is  the  fountain  of 
all  light  and  all  rapture ;  it  bids  us  despair  precisely  because 
it  is  singular,  exceptional,  capricious,  strange,  disdainful  of 
the  meddling  touch  of  those  who  strive  to  pierce  its  mysteri 
ous  secret,  stubbornly  defiant  of  the  efforts  of  those  who  strive 
to  subdue  it,  in  a  word,  absolutely  beyond  the  ken  of  the 
logic  and  discipline  of  the  common  run  of  men.  It  is  a 
mighty  tree,  bearing  fruit  of  food  for  the  ages,  and  grow- 
ing under  conditions  that  forbid  us  to  hope  either  to  incite 
or  foretell  its  production,  or  to  rule  its  existence  or  calculate 
its  fertility.  We  must  wait  humbly  and  patiently  till  it 
pleases  Providence  to  bestow  on  us  its  blessing  and  glory. 
Happily,  men  of  genius  are  not  indispensable  to  humanity. 
The  more  the  general  level  of  a  nation  is  lifted,  the  less  es- 
sential do  they  become.  Now  that  level  rises  irresistibly, 
whenever  the  will  and  the  ready  force  of  all  citizens  know 
but  one  sincere  desire,  that  of  self-improvement.  The  cult- 
ure of  heredity  by  relentlessly  eradicating  all  causes  that 
tend  to  degeneracy,  and  fostering  causes  that  work  im- 
provement, may  be  commended  with  all  assurance  to  na- 
tions ambitious  of  winning  by  its  means  the  foremost  rank 
in  the  world. 

THE   END. 


International  Scientific  Series. 


D.  APPLETON  &  Co.  have  the  pleasure  of  announcing  that  they  have  made  arrange- 
ments for  publishing,  and  have  recently  commenced  the  issue  of,  a  SKRIES  OF  POPULAR 
MONOGRAPHS,  or  small  works,  under  the  above  title,  which  will  embody  the  results  of 
recent  inquiry  in  the  most  interesting  departments  of  advancing  science. 

The  character  and  scope  of  this  series  will  be  best  indicated  by  a  reference  to  the 
names  and  subjects  included  in  the  subjoined  list,  from  which  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
cooperation  of  the  most  distinguished  professors  in  England,  Germany,  France,  and  the 
United  States,  has  been  secured,  and  negotiations  are  pending  for  contributions  from 
other  eminent  scientific  writers. 

The  works  will  be  issued  in  New  York,  London,  Paris,  Leipsic,  Milan,  and  St. 
Petersburg. 

The  INTERNATIONAL  SCIENTIFIC  SERIES  is  entirely  an  American  project,  and  was 

"  o  spent  the  greater  part  of  a  year 
The  forthcoming  volumes  are  as 


originated  and  organized  by  Dr.  E.  L.  Youmans,  who  spent  the  greater  part  of  a  year 
in  Europe,  arranging  with  authors  and  publishers.     T" 


follow 

Prof.  LOMMEL  (University  of  Erlangen), 

Optics.     (In  press.) 
Rev.   M.  J.  BERKELEY,  M.  A.,  F.  L.  S., 

and    M.     COOKE,    M.  A.,    LL.  D., 

Fungi;    thtir   Nature,    Influences, 

and  Uses.     (In  press.) 
Prof.  W.  KINGDOM  CLIFFORD,  M.  A.,  The 

First  Principles  of  the  Exact  Sciences 

explained  to  the  non-mathematical. 
Prof.  T.  H.  HUXLEY,  LL.  D.,  F.  R.  S.,   | 

Bodily  Motion  and  Consciousness. 
Dr.  W.  B.  CARPENTER,  LL.  D.,  F.  R.  S.,  i 

The  Physical  Geography  of  the  Sea.     \ 
Prof.  WILLIAM  ODLONG,  F.  R.  S.,  The  Old  \ 

Chemistry  viewed  from    the   New  j 

Standpoint. 
W.  LAUDER  LINDSAY,  M.  D.,  F.  R.  S.  E., 

Mind  in  the  Lower  A  nimals. 
Sir  JOHN  LUBBOCK,  Bart,  F.  R.  S.,  The 

A  ntiquity  of  Man. 
Prof.  W.   T.    THISELTON  DYER,  B.  A., 

B.  Sc.,  Form  and  Habit  in  Flower- 

i?ig  Plants. 
Mr.  J.  N.  LOCKYER,  F.  R.  S.,  Spectrum 

A  nalysis. 

Prof.   MICHAEL  FOSTER,   M.  D.,  Proto- 
plasm and  the  Cell  Theory. 
Prof.  W.  STANLEY  JEVONS,  Money :  and 

the  Mechanism  of  Exchange. 
H.  CHARLTON  BASTIAN,  M.  D.,  F.  R.  S., 

The  Brain  as  an  Organ  of  Mind. 
Prof.  A.  C.  RAMSAY,  LL.  D.,  F.  R.  S., 

Earth    Sculpture:    Hills,     Valleys, 

Mountains,  Plains,  Rivers,  Lakes; 

how  they  -were  produced,  and  how 

they  have  been  destroyed. 
Prof.  RUDOLPH  VIRCHOW  (Berlin  Univer- 
sity), Morbid  Physiological  Action. 
Prof.   CLAUDE    BERNARD,  Physical  and 

Metaphysical  Phenomena  of  Life. 
Prof.    H.   SAINTE-CLAIRE  DEVILLE,  An 

Introduction  to  General  Chemistry. 
Prof.    WURTZ,   Atoms    and   the  Atomic 

Theory. 
Prof.     DE    QUATREFAGES,    The    Negro 

Races. 


Prof.  LACAZE-DUTHIERS,  Zoology  since 
Cuvier. 

Prof.  BERTHELOT,  Chemical  Synthesis. 

Prof.  J.  ROSENTHAL,  General  Physiology 
of  Muscles  and  Nerves. 

Prof.  JAMESD.  DANA,  M.  A.,  LL.  D.,  On 
Cephalization  ;  or,  Head-Characters 
in  the  Gradation  and  Progress  of 
Life. 

Prof.  S.  W.  JOHNSON,  M.  A.,  On  the  Nu- 
trition of  Plants. 

Prof.  AUSTIN  FLINT,  Jr.,  M.  D.,  The 
Nervous  System  and  its  Relation  to 
the  Bodily  Functions. 

Prof.  W.  D.  WHITNEY,  Modern  Linguis- 
tic Science. 

Prof.  C.  A.  YOUNG,  Ph.  D.  (of  Dartmouth 
College),  The  Sun. 

Prof.  BERNSTEIN  (University  of  Halle), 
Physiology  of  the  Senses. 

Prof.  FERDINAND  COHN  (Breslau  Univer- 
sity), Thallophytes  (Algae,  Lichens, 
Fungi). 

Prof.  HERMANN  (University  of  Zurich), 
Respiration. 

Prof.  LEUCKART  (University  of  Leipsic), 
Outlines  of  A  nimal  Organization. 

Prof.  LIEBREICH  (University  of  Berlin), 
Outlines  of  Toxicology. 

Prof.  KUNDT  (University  of  Strasburg), 
On  Sound. 

Prof.  REES  (University  of  Erlangen),  On 
Parasitic  Plants. 

Prof.  STEINTHAL  (University  of  Berlin), 
Outlines  of  the  Science  of  Language. 

E.  ALGLAVE  (Professor  of  Constitutional 
and  Administrative  Law  at  Douai,  and 
of  Political  Economy  at  Lille),  The 
Primitive  Elements  of  Political  Con- 
stitutions. 

P.  LORAIN  (Professor  of  Medicine,  Paris), 
Modern  Epidemics. 

Prof.  ScHpTZENBERGER  (Director  of  the 
Chemical  Laboratory  at  the  Sorbonne), 
On  Fermentations. 

Mons.  DEBRAY,  Precious  Metals. 


Opinions  of  the  Press  on  the  "International  Scientific  Series." 


Tyndall's  Forms  of  Water. 

I  vol.,  I2mo.     Cloth.     Illustrated Price,  $1.50. 

"  In  the  volume  now  published,  Professor  Tyndall  has  presented  a  noble  illustration 
of  the  acuteness  and  subtlety  of  his  intellectual  powers,  the  scope  and  insight  of  his 
scientific  vision,  his  singular  command  of  the  appropriate  language  of  exposition,  and 
the  peculiar  vivacity  and  grace  with  which  he  unfolds  the  results  of  intricate  scientific 
research." — N.  Y.  Tribune. 

"  The  '  Forms  of  Water,'  by  Professor  Tyndall,  is  an  interesting  and  instructive 
little  volume,  admirably  printed  and  illustrated.  Prepared  expressly  for  this  series,  it 
is  in  some  measure  a  guarantee  of  the  excellence  of  the  volumes  that  will  follow,  and  an 
indication  that  the  publishers  will  spare  no  pains  to  include  in  the  series  the  freshest  in- 
vestigations of  the  best  scientific  minds.  "—Boston  Journal. 

"  This  series  is  admirably  commenced  by  this  little  volume  from  the  pen  of  Prof- 
Tyndall.  A  perfect  master  of  his  subject,  he  presents  in  a  style  easy  and  attractive  his 
methods  of  investigation,  and  the  results  obtained,  and  gives  to  the  reader  a  clear  con- 
ception of  all  the  wondrous  transformations  to  which  water  is  subjected." — Churchman. 


II. 

Bagehot's  Physics  and  Politics. 

I  vol.,  I2mo.     Price,  $1.50. 

"  If  the  '  International  Scientific  Series  '  proceeds  as  it  has  begun,  it  will  more  than 
fulfil  the  promise  given  to  the  reading  public  in  its  prospectus.  The  first  volume,  by 
Professor  Tyndall,  was  a  model  of  lucid  and  attractive  scientific  exposition  ;  and  now 
we  have  a  second,  by  Mr.  Walter  Bagehot,  which  is  not  only  very  lucid  and  charming, 
but  also  original  and  suggestive  in  the  highest  degree.  Nowhere  since  the  publication 
of  Sir  Henry  Maine's  'Ancient  Law,'  have  we  seen  so  many  fruitful  thoughts  sug- 
gested in  the  course  of  a  couple  of  hundred  pages.  .  .  .  To  do  justice  to  Mr.  Bage- 
hot's fertile  book,  would  require  a  long  article.  With  the  best  of  intentions,  we  are 
conscious  of  having  given  but  a  sorry  account  of  it  in  these  brief  paragraphs.  But  we 
hope  we  have  said  enough  to  commend  it  to  the  attention  of  the  thoughtful  reader." — 
Prof.  JOHN  FISKE,  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly. 

"  Mr.  Bagehot's  style  is  clear  and  vigorous.  We  refrain  from  giving  a  fuller  ac- 
count of  these  suggestive  essays,  only  because  we  are  sure  that  our  readers  will  find  it 
worth  their  while  to  peruse  the  book  for  themselves ;  and  we  sincerely  hope  that  the 
forthcoming  parts  of  the  'International  Scientific  Series'  will  be  as  interesting."-- 
A  thenteum. 

"  Mr.  Bagehot  discusses  an  immense  variety  of  topics  connected  with  the  progress 
of  societies  and  nations,  and  the  development  of  their  distinctive  peculiarities;  and  hu 
book  shows  an  abundance  of  ingenious  and  original  thought  "—ALFRED  RUSSELI 
WALLACK,  in  Nature. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  Publishers,  549  &  551  Broadway,  N.  Y, 


Opinions  of  the  Press  on  the  "International  Scientific  Series." 


m. 

Foods. 

By   Dr.  EDWARD   SMITH. 
I  vol.,  I2mo.     Cloth.     Illustrated Price,  $1.75. 

In  making  up  THE  INTERNATIONAL  SCIENTIFIC  SERIES,  Dr.  Edward  Smith  was  se- 
lected as  the  ablest  man  in  England  to  treat  the  important  subject  of  Foods.  His  services 
were  secured  for  the  undertaking,  and  the  little  treatise  he  has  produced  shows  that  the 
choice  of  a  writer  on  this  subject  was  most  fortunate,  as  the  book  is  unquestionably  the 
clearest  and  best-digested  compend  of  the  Science  of  Foods  that  has  appeared  in  our 
language. 

"  The  book  contains  a  series  of  diagrams,  displaying  the  effects  of  sleep  and  meals 
on  pulsation  and  respiration,  and  of  various  kinds  of  food  on  respiration,  which,  as  the 
results  of  Dr.  Smith's  own  experiments,  possess  a  very  high  value.  We  have  not  far 
to  go  in  this  work  for  occasions  of  favorable  criticism ;  they  occur  throughout,  but  are 
perhaps  most  apparent  in  those  parts  of  the  subject  with  which  Dr.  Smith's  name  is  es- 
pecially linked." — London  Examiner. 

"  The  union  of  scientific  and  popular  treatment  in  the  composition  of  this  work  will 
afford  an  attraction  to  many  readers  who  would  have  been  indifferent  to  purely  theoreti- 
cal  details.  .  .  .  Still  his  work  abounds  in  information,  much  of  which  is  of  great  value, 
and  a  part  of  which  could  not  easily  be  obtained  from  other  sources.  Its  interest  is  de- 
cidedly  enhanced  for  students  who  demand  both  clearness  and  exactness  of  statement, 
by  the  profusion  of  well-executed  woodcuts,  diagrams,  and  tables,  which  accompany  th? 
volume.  .  .  .  The  suggestions  of  the  author  on  the  use  of  tea  and  coffee,  and  of  the  va- 
rious forms  of  alcohol,  although  perhaps  not  strictly  of  a  novel  character,  are  highly  in- 
structive,  and  form  an  interesting  portion  of  the  volume." — N.  Y.  Tribune. 


IV. 

Body  and  Mind. 

THE    THEORIES    OF   THEIR    RELATION. 

By   ALEXANDER    BAIN,    LL.  D. 
I  vol.,   I2mo.      Cloth •     •     Price,  $1.50. 

PROFESSOR  BAIN  is  the  author  of  two  well-known  standard  works  upon  the  Science 
of  Mind — "The  Senses  and  the  Intellect,"  and  "The  Emotions  and  the  Will."  He  is 
one  of  the  highest  living  authorities  in  the  school  which  holds  that  there  can  be  no  sound 
or  valid  psychology  unless  the  mind  and  the  body  are  studied,  as  they  exist,  together. 

"  It  contains  a  forcible  statement  of  the  connection  between  mind  and  body,  study- 
ing their  subtile  interworkings  by  the  light  of  the  most  recent  physiological  investiga- 
tions. The  summary  in  Chapter  V.,  of  the  investigations  of  Dr.  Lionel  Beale  of  the 
embo'diment  of  the  intellectual  functions  in  the  cerebral  system,  will  be  found  the 
freshest  and  most  interesting  part  of  his  book.  Prof.  Bain's  own  theory  of  the  connec- 
tion between  the  mental  and  the  bodily  part  in  man  is  stated  by  himself  to  be  as  follows : 
There  is  '  one  substance,  with  two  sets  of  properties,  two  sides,  the  physical  and  the 
mental — a  double-faced  unity.'  While,  in  the  strongest  manner,  asserting  the  union 
of  mind  with  brain,  he  yet  denies  'the  association  of  union  in  place,'  but  asserts  the 
union  of  close  succession  in  time,'  holding  that  'the  same  being  is,  by  alternate  fits,  un- 
der extended  and  under  unextended  consciousness."  ' — Christian  Register. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  Publishers,  549  &  551  Broadway,  N.  Y. 


Opinions  of  the  Press  on  the  "  International  Scientific  Series." 

V. 

The  Study  of  Sociology. 

By   HERBERT   SPENCER. 
I  vol.,  I2mo.     Cloth Price,  $1.50. 

"The  philosopher  whose  distinguished  name  gives  weight  and  influence  to  this  vol- 
ume, has  given  in  its  pages  some  of  the  finest  specimens  of  reasoning  in  all  its  forms 
and  departments.  There  is  a  fascination  in  his  array  of  facts,  incidents,  and  opinions, 
which  draws  on  the  reader  to  ascertain  his  conclusions.  The  coolness  and  calmness  of 
his  treatment  of  acknowledged  difficulties  and  grave  objections  to  his  theories  win  for 
him  a  close  attention  and  sustained  effort,  on  the  part  of  the  reader,  to  comprehend,  fol- 
low, grasp,  and  appropriate  his  principles.  This  book,  independently  of  its  bearing 
upon  sociology,  is  valuable  as  lucidly  showing  what  those  essential  characteristics  are 
which  entitle  any  arrangement  and  connection  of  facts  and  deductions  to  be  called  a 
science" — Episcopalian. 


"  This  work  compels  admiration  by  the  evidence  which  it  gives  of  immense  re- 
search, study,  and  observation,  and  is,  withal,  written  in  a  popular  and  very  pleasing 
sryle.  It  is  a  fascinating  work,  as  well  as  one  of  deep  practical  thought." — Bost.  Post. 


"  Herbert  Spencer  is  unquestionably  the  foremost  living  thinker  in  the  psychological 
and  sociological  fields,  and  this  volume  is  an  important  contribution  to  the  science  of 
which  it  treats.  ...  It  will  prove  more  popular  than  any  of  its  author's  other  creations, 
for  it  is  more  plainly  addressed  to  the  people  and  has  a  more  practical  and  less  specu- 
lative cast.  It  will  require  thought,  but  it  is  well  worth  thinking  about." — Albany 
Evening  Journal. 

VI. 

The   New  Chemistry. 

By  JOSIAH  P.  COOKE,  JR., 

Erving  Professor  of  Chemistry  and  Mineralogy  in  Harvard  University. 
I  vol.,   I2mo.     Cloth Price,  $2.00. 

"  The  book  of  Prof.  Cooke  is  a  model  of  the  modern  popular  science  work.  It  has 
just  the  due  proportion  of  fact,  philosophy,  and  true  romance,  to  make  it  a  fascinating 
companion,  either  for  the  voyage  or  the  study." — Daily  Graphic. 

"  This  admirable  monograph,  by  the  distinguished  Erving  Professor  of  Chemistry 
in  Harvard  University,  is  the  first  American  contribution  to  '  The  International  Scien- 
tific Series,'  and  a  more  attractive  piece  of  work  in  the  way  of  popular  exposition  upon 
a  difficult  subject  has  not  appeared  in  a  long  time.  It  not  only  well  sustains  the  char- 
acter of  the  volumes  with  which  it  is  associated,  but  its  reproduction  in  European  coun- 
tries will  be  an  honor  to  American  science." — Neiv  York  Tribune. 

"  All  the  chemists  in  the  country  will  enjoy  its  perusal,  and  many  will  seize  upon  it 
as  a  thing  longed  for.  For,  to  those  advanced  students  who  have  kept  well  abreast  of 
the  chemical  tide,  it  offers  a  calm  philosophy.  To  those  others,  youngest  of  the  class, 
who  have  emerged  from  the  schools  since  new  methods  have  prevailed,  it  presents  a 
generalization,  drawing  to  its  use  all  the  data,  the  relations  of  which  the  newly-fledged 
fact-seeker  may  but  dimly  perceive  without  its  aid.  ...  To  the  old  chemists,  Prof. 
Cooke's  treatise  is  like  a  message  from  beyond  the  mountain.  They  have  heard  of 
changes  in  the  science;  the  clash  of  the  battle  of  old  and  new  theories  has  stirred  them 
from  afar.  The  tidings,  too,  had  come  that  the  old  had  given  way ;  and  little  more  than 
this  they  knew.  .  .  .  Prof.  Cooke's '  New  Chemistry'  must  do  wide  service  in  bringing 
to  close  sight  the  little  known  and  the  longed  for.  ...  As  a  philosophy  it  is  elemen- 
tary, but,  as  a  book  of  science,  ordinary  readers  will  find  it  sufficiently  advanced."— 
Utica  Morning  Herald. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  Publishers,  549  &  551  Broadway,  N.  Y. 


Opinions  of  the  Press  on  the  "International  Scientific  Series" 

VII. 

The  Conservation  of  Energy. 

By  BALFOUR  STEWART,  LL.  D.,  F.  R.  S. 

With  an  Appendix  treating  of  the  Vital  and  Menial  Applications  of  the  Doctrine. 

I  vol.,  I2mo.     Cloth.    Price,  $1.50. 

"  The  author  has  succeeded  in  presenting  the  facts  in  a  clear  and  satisfactory  manner, 
using  simple  language  and  copious  illustration  in  the  presentation  of  facts  and  prin- 
ciples, confining  himself,  however,  to  the  physical  aspect  of  the  subject.  In  the  Ap- 
pendix the  operation  of  the  principles  in  the  spheres  of  life  and  mind  is  supplied  by 
the  essays  of  Professors  Le  Conte  and  Bain."— Ohio  Farmer. 

"  Prof.  Stewart  is  one  of  the  best  known  teachers  in  Owens  College  in  Manchester. 

"  The  volume  of  THE  INTERNATIONAL  SCIENTIFIC  SERIES  now  before  us  is  an  ex- 
cellent illustration  of  the  true  method  of  teaching,  and  will  well  compare  with  Prof. 
Tyndall's  charming  little  book  in  the  same  series  on  '  Forms  of  Water,"  with  illustra- 
tions enough  to  make  clear,  but  not  to  conceal  his  thoughts,  in  a  style  simple  and 
brief." — Christian  Register,  Boston. 

"  The  writer  has  wonderful  ability  to  compress  much  information  into  a  few  words. 
It  is  a  rich  treat  to  read  such  a  book  as  this,  when  there  is  so  much  beauty  and  force 
combined  with  such  simplicity. — Eastern  Press. 


VIII. 

Animal  Locomotion; 

Or,  WALKING,  SWIMMING,  AND  FLYING. 

With  a  Dissertation  on  Aeronautics. 

By  T.  BELL  PETTIGREW,  M.  D.,  F.  R.  S.,  F.  R.  S.  E., 
F.  R.C.  P.E. 

I  vol.,  I2mo Price,  $1.75. 

"  This  work  is  more  than  a  contribution  to  the  stock  of  entertaining  knowledge, 
though,  if  it  only  pleased,  that  would  be  sufficient  excuse  for  its  publication.  But  Dr. 
Pettigrew  has  given  his  time  to  these  investigations  with  the  ultimate  purpose  of  solv- 
ing the  difficult  problem  of  Aeronautics.  To  this  he  devotes  the  last  fifty  pages  of  hi« 
book.  Dr.  Pettigrew  is  confident  that  man  will  yet  conquer  the  domain  of  the  air." — 
N.  Y.  Journal  of  Commerce. 

"  Most  persons  claim  to  know  how  to  walk,  but  few  could  explain  the  mechanical 
principles  involved  in  this  most  ordinary  transaction,  and  will  be  surprised  that  the 
movements  of  bipeds  and  quadrupeds,  the  darting  and  rushing  motion  of  fish,  and  the 
erratic  flight  of  the  denizens  of  the  air,  are  not  only  anologous,  but  can  be  reduced  to 
similar  formula.  The  work  is  profusely  illustrated,  and,  without  reference  to  the  theory 
it  is  designed  to  expound,  will  be  regarded  as  a  valuable  addition  to  natural  history." 
— Omaha  Republic. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS,  549  &  551  Broadway,  N.  Y. 


Opinions  of  the  Press  on  the  "International  Scientific  Series? 


IX. 

Responsibility  in  Mental  Disease. 

By  HENRY   MAUDSLEY,    M.  D., 

Fellow  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians;  Professor  of  Medical  Jurisprudence 
in  University  College,  London. 

I  vol.,   I2mo.     Cloth.     .     .     Price,  $1.50. 

"  Having  lectured  in  a  medical  college  on  Mental  Disease,  this  book  has  been  a 
feast  to  us.  It  handles  a  great  subject  in  a  masterly  manner,  and,  in  our  judgment,  the 
positions  taken  by  the  author  are  correct  and  well  sustained." — Pastor  and  People. 

"  The  author  is  at  home  in  his  subject,  and  presents  his  views  in  an  almost  singu- 
larly clear  and  satisfactory  manner.  .  .  .  The  volume  is  a  valuable  contribution  to  one 
of  the  most  difficult,  and  at  the  same  time  one  of  the  most  important  subjects  of  inves- 
tigation at  the  present  day." — N.  Y.  Observer. 

"It  is  a  work  profound  and  searching,  and  abounds  in  wisdom." — Pittsburg  Com- 
mercial. 

"  Handles  the  important  topic  with  masterly  power,  and  its  suggestions  are  prac- 
tical and  of  great  vahie." — Providence  Press. 


The  Science  of  Law. 

By  SHELDON  AMOS,  M.  A., 

Professor  of  Jurisprudence  in  University  College,  London;  author  of  "A  Systematic 

View  of  the  Science  of  Jurisprudence,"  "  An  English  Code,  its  Difficulties 

and  the  Modes  of  overcoming  them,"  etc.,  etc. 

I  vol.,  I2mo.     Cloth Price,  $1.75. 

"The  valuable  series  of  'International  Scientific'  works,  prepared  by  eminent  spe- 
cialists, with  the  intention  of  popularizing  information  in  their  several  branches  of 
knowledge,  has  received  a  good  accession  in  this  compact  and  thoughtful  volume.  It 
is  a  difficult  task  to  give  the  outlines  of  a  complete  theory  of  law  in  a  portable  volume, 
which  he  who  runs  may  read,  and  probably  Professor  Amos  himself  would  be  the  last 
to  claim  that  he  has  perfectly  succeeded  in  doing  this.  But  he  has  certainly  done  much 
to  clear  the  science  of  law  from  the  technical  obscurities  which  darken  it  to  minds  which 
have  had  no  legal  training,  and  to  make  clear  to  his  '  lay '  readers  in  how  true  and  high  a 
sense  it  can  assert  its  right  to  be  considered  a  science,  and  not  a  mere  practice."—  The 
Christian  Register. 

"The  works  of  Bentham  and  Austin  are  abstruse  and  philosophical,  and  Maine's 
require  hard  study  and  a  certain  amount  of  special  training.  The  writers  also  pursue 
different  lines  of  investigation,  and  can  only  be  regarded  as  comprehensive  in  the  de- 
partments they  confined  themselves  to.  It  was  left  to  Amos  to  gather  up  the  result 
and  present  the  science  in  its  fullness.  The  unquestionable  merits  of  this,  his  last  book, 
are,  that  it  contains  a  complete  treatment  of  a  subject  which  has  hitherto  been  handled 
by  specialists,  and  it  opens  up  that  subject  to  every  inquiring  mind.  .  .  .  To  do  justice 
to  '  The  Science  of  Law '  would  require  a  longer  review  than  we  have  space  for.  We 
have  read  no  more  interesting  and  instructive  book  for  some  time.  Its  themes  concern 
every  one  who  renders  obedience  to  laws,  and  who  would  have  those  laws  the  best 
possible.  The  tide  of  legal  reform  which  set  in  fifty  years  ago  has  to  sweep  yet  higher 
if  the  flaws  in  our  jurisprudence  are  to  be  removed.  The  process  of  change  cannot  be 
better  guided  than  by  a  well-informed  public  mind,  and  Prof.  Amos  has  done  great 
service  in  materially  helping  to  promote  this  end." — ^Buffalo  Courier. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS,  549  &  551  Broadway,  N.  Y. 


Opinions  of  the  Press  on  the  "International  Scientific  Series." 


XI. 

Animal  Mechanism, 

A  Treatise  on  Terrestrial  and  Aerial  Locomotion. 

By  E.  J.  MAREY, 

Professor  at  the  College  of  France,  and  Member  of  the  Academy  of  Medicine. 

With  117  Illustrations,  drawn  and  engraved  under  the  direction  of  the  author. 

i  vol.,  12010.     Cloth Price,  $1.75 

"  We  hope  that,  in  the  short  glance  which  we  have  taken  of  some  of  the  most  im- 
portant points  discussed  in  the  work  before  us,  we  have  succeeded  in  interesting  our 
readers  sufficiently  in  its  contents  to  make  them  curious  to  learn  more  of  its  subject- 
matter.  We  cordially  recommend  it  to  their  attention. 

"  The  author  of  the  present  work,  it  is  well  known,  stands  at  the  head  of  those 
physiologists  who  have  investigated  the  mechanism  of  animal  dynamics — indeed,  we 
may  almost  say  that  he  has  made  the  subject  his  own.  By  the  originality  of  his  con- 
ceptions, the  ingenuity  of  his  constructions,  the  skill  of  his  analysis,  and  the  persever- 
ance of  his  investigations,  he  has  surpassed  all  others  in  the  power  of  unveiling  the 
complex  and  intricate  movements  of  animated  beings." — Popular  Science  Monthly. 


XII. 

History   of  the   Conflict    between 
Religion  and   Science. 

By  JOHN  WILLIAM  DRAPER,  M.  D.,  LL.  D., 

Author  of  "  The  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe." 
i  vol.,  i2mo. Price,  $1.75. 

"This  little  '  History'  would  have  been  a  valuable  contribution  to  literature  at  any 
*ime,  and  is,  in  fact,  an  admirable  text-book  upon  a  subject  that  is  at  present  engross- 
ing the  attention  of  a  large  number  of  the  most  serious-minded  people,  and  it  is  no 
small  compliment  to  the  sagacity  of  its  distinguished  author  that  he  has  so  well  gauged 
the  requirements  of  the  times,  and  so  adequately  met  them  by  the  preparation  of  this 
volume.  It  remains  to  be  added  that,  while  the  writer  has  flinched  from  no  responsi- 
bility in  his  statements,  and  has  written  with  entire  fidelity  to  the  demands  of  truth 
and  justice,  there  is  not  a  word  in  his  book  that  can  give  offense  to  candid  and  fair- 
minded  readers." — N.  Y.  Evening  Post. 

"  The  key-note  to  this  volume  is  found  in  the  antagonism  between  the  progressive 
tendencies  of  the  human  mind  and  the  pretensions  of  ecclesiastical  authority,  as  devel- 
oped in  the  history  of  modern  science.  No  previous  writer  has  treated  the  subject 
from  this  point  of  view,  and  the  present  monograph  will  be  found  to  possess  no  less 
originality  of  conception  than  vigor  of  reasoning  and  wealth  of  erudition.  .  .  .  The 
method  of  Dr.  Draper,  in  his  treatment  of  the  various  questions  that  come  up  for  dis- 
cussion, is  marked  by  singular  impartiality  as  well  as  consummate  ability.  Through- 
out his  work  he  maintains  the  position  of  an  historian,  not  of  an  advocate.  His  tone  is 
tranquil  and  serene,  as  becomes  the  search  after  truth,  with  no  trace  of  the  impassioned 
ardor  of  controversy.  He  endeavors  so  far  to  identify  himself  with  the  contending 
parties  as  to  gain  a  clear  comprehension  of  their  motives,  but,  at  the  same  time,  he 
submits  their  actions  to  the  tests  of  a  cool  and  impartial  examination." — N.  Y.  Tribune. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS,  549  &  551  Broadway,  N.  Y. 


THE   GREVILLE   MEMOIRS. 

COMPLETE  IN  TWO    VOLS. 


A  JOURNAL  OF  THE  REIGNS  OF 

King  George  IV.  &  King  William  IV. 

By  the  Late  CHAS.  C.  F.  GREVILLE,  Esq., 
Clerk  of  the  Council  to  those  Sovereigns. 

Edited  by  HENRY  REEVE,  Registrar  of  the  Privy  Council. 

12mo.     PRICE,  $4.00. 

This  edition  contains  the  complete  text  as  published  in  the  three  volumes 
of  the  English  edition. 


"The  sensation  created  by  these  Memoirs,  on  their  first  appearance,  was  not  out  of 
proportion  to  their  real  interest.  They  relate  to  a  period  of  our  history  second  only  in 
importance  to  the  Revolution  of  1688;  they  portray  manners  which  have  now  disap- 
peared from  society,  yet  have  disappeared  so  recently  that  middle-aged  men  can  recol- 
lect them ;  and  they  concern  the  conduct  of  very  eminent  persons,  of  whom  some  are 
still  living,  while  of  others  the  memory  is  so  fresh  that  they  still  seem  almost  to  be  con- 
temporaneous."— The  Academy. 

"  Such  Memoirs  as  these  are  the  most  interesting  contributions  to  history  that  can 
be  made,  and  the  most  valuable  as  well.  The  man  deserves  gratitude  from  his  pos- 
terity who,  being  placed  in  the  midst  of  events  that  have  any  importance,  and  of  people 
who  bear  any  considerable  part  in  them,  sits  down  day  by  day  and  makes  a  record  of 
his  observations." — Buffalo  Courier. 

"  The  Greville  Memoirs,  already  in  a  third  edition  in  London,  in  little  more  than 
two  months,  have  been  republished  by  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York.  The  three 
loosely-printed  English  volumes  are  here  given  in  two,  without  the  slightest  abridg- 
ment, and  the  price,  which  is  nine  dollars  across  the  water,  here  is  only  four.  It 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  this  work,  though  not  so  ambitious  in  its  style  as  Horace 
Walpole's  well-known  'Correspondence,'  is  much  more  interesting.  In  a  word,  these 
Greville  Memoirs  supply  valuable  materials  not  alone  for  political,  but  also  for  social 
history  during  the  time  they  cover.  They  are  additionally  attractive  from  the  large 
quantity  of  racy  anecdotes  which  they  contain." — Philadelphia  Press. 

"  These  are  a  few  among  many  illustrations  of  the  pleasant,  gossipy  information  con- 
veyed in  these  Memoirs,  whose  great  charm  is  the  free  and  straightforward  manner  in 
which  the  writer  chronicles  his  impressions  of  men  and  events." — Boston  Daily  Globe. 

"As  will  be  seen,  these  volumes  are  of  remarkable  interest,  and  fully  justify  the  en- 
comiums that  heralded  their  appearance  in  this  country.  They  will  attract  a  large  cir- 
cle of  readers  here,  who  will  find  in  their  gossipy  pages  an  almost  inexhaustible  fund  of 
instruction  and  amusement." — Boston  Saturday  Evening  Gazette. 

"Since  the  publication  of  Horace  Walpole's  Letters,  no  book  of  greater  historical 
interest  has  seen  the  light  than  the  Greville  Memoirs.  It  throws  a  curious,  and,  we 
may  almost  say,  a  terrible  light  on  the  conduct  and  character  of  the  public  men  in  Eng- 
land under  the  reigns  of  George  IV.  and  William  IV.  Its  descriptions  of  those  kings 
and  their  kinsfolk  are  never  likely  to  be  forgotten." — N.  Y.  Times. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS,  549  &  551  Broadway,  N.  Y. 


THE    LIFE    OF 

HIS  ROYAL  HIGHNESS 

THE  PRINCE  CONSORT. 

By   THEODORE    MARTIN. 

With  Portraits  and  Views.     Volume  the  First,     izmo.     Cloth.    Price,  $2.00. 


"The  book,  indeed,  is  more  comprehensive  than  its  title  implies.  .  Purporting  to 
tell  the  life  of  the  Prince  Consort,  it  includes  a  scarcely  less  minute  biography— which 
may  be  regarded  as  almost  an  autobiography— of  the  Queen  herself;  and,  when  it  is 
complete,  it  will  probably  present  a  more  minute  history  of  the  domestic  life  of  a  queen 
and  her  '  master '  (the  term  is  Her  Majesty's)  than  has  ever  before  appeared."— From 
the  A  thenaum. 

"  Mr.  Martin  has  accomplished  his  task  with  a  success  which  could  scarcely  have 
been  anticipated.  His  biography  of  Prince  Albert  would  be  valuable  and  instructive 
even  if  it  were  addressed  to  remote  and  indifferent  readers  who  had  no  special  interest 
ia  the  English  court  or  in  the  royal  family.  Prince  Albert's  actual  celebrity  is  insepa- 
rably associated  with  the  high  position  which  he  occupied,  but  his  claim  to  permanent 
reputation  depends  on  the  moral  and  intellectual  qualities  which  were  singularly 
adapted  to  the  circumstances  of  his  career.  In  any  rank  of  life  he  would  probably 
have  attained  distinction;  but  his  prudence,  his  self-denial,  and  his  aptitude  for  acquir- 
ing practical  knowledge,  could  scarcely  have  found  a  more  suitable  field  of  exercise 
than  in  his  peculiar  situation  as  the  acknowledged  head  of  a  constitutional  monarchy." 
From  the  Saturday  Review. 

"  The  author  writes  with  dignity  and  grace,  he  values  his  subject,  and  treats  him 
with  a  certain  courtly  reverence,  yet  never  once  sinks  into  the  panegyrist,  and  while 
apparently  most  frank— so  frank,  that  the  reticent  English  people  may  feel  the  intimacy 
of  his  domestic  narratives  almost  painful — he  is  never  once  betrayed  into  a  momentary 
indiscretion.  The  almost  idyllic  beauty  of  the  relation  between  the  Prince  Consort 
and  the  Queen  comes  out  as  fully  as  in  all  previous  histories  of  that  relation— and  we 
have  now  had  three — as  does  also  a  good  deal  of  evidence  as  to  the  Queen's  own 
character,  hitherto  always  kept  down,  and,  as  it  were,  self  effaced  in  publications 
written  or  sanctioned  by  herself." — From  the  London  Spectator. 

"Of  the  abilities  which  have  been  claimed  for  the  Prince  Consort,  this  work  affords 
us  small  means  of  judging.  But  of  his  wisdom,  strong  sense  of  duty,  and  great  dignity 
and  purity  of  character,  the  volume  furnishes  ample  evidence.  In  this  way  it  will  be 
of  service  to  any  one  who  reads  it." — From  the  New  York  Evening  Post. 

"  There  is  a  striking  contrast  between  this  volume  and  the  Greville  Memoirs,  which 
relate  to  a  period  in  English  history  immediately  preceding  Prince  Albert's  marriage 
with  Queen  Victoria.  Radical  changes  were  effected  in  court-life  by  Victoria's  acces- 
sion to  the  throne.  ...  In  the  work  before  us,  which  is  the  unfolding  of  a  model  home- 
life,  a  life  in  fact  unrivaled  in  the  abodes  of  modern  royalty,  there  is  nothing  but  what 
the  purest  mind  can  read  with  real  pleasure  and  profit. 

"  Mr.  Martin  draws  a  most  exquisite  portraiture  of  the  married  life  of  the  royal  pair, 
which  seems  to  have  been  as  nearly  perfect  as  any  thing  human  can  be.  The  volume 
closes  shortly  after  the  Revolution  of  1848,  at  Paris,  when  Louis  Philippe  and  his  hap- 
less queen  were  fleeing  to  England  in  search  of  an  asylum  from  the  fearful  forebodings 
which  overhung  their  pathway.  It  was  a  trying  time  for  England,  but,  says  Mr.  Mar- 
tin with  true  dramatic  effect  in  the  closing  passages  of  his  book :  '  When  the  storm 
burst,  it  found  him  prepared.  In  rising  to  meet  the  difficulties  of  the  hour,  the  prince 
found  the  best  support  in  the  cheerful  courage  of  the  queen/  who  on  the  4th  of 
April  of  that  same  year  wrote  to  King  Leopold  :  '  I  never  was  calmer  and  quieter  or 
less  nervous.  Great  events  make  me  calm ;  it  is  only  trifles  that  irritate  my  nerves.' 
Thus  ends  the  first  volume  of  one  of  the  most  important  biographies  of  the  present 
time.  The  second  volume  will  follow  as  soon  as  its  preparation  can  be  effected." — 
From  the  Hartford  Evening  Post. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS,  549  &  551  Broadway,  N.  Y. 


RECENT  PUBLICATIONS. 


THE  NATIVE  RACES  OF  THE  PACIFIC  STATES. 

By  HERBERT  H.  BANCROFT.  To  be  completed  in  5  vols.  Vol.  I.  mm 
ready.  Containing  Wild  Tribes :  their  Manners  and  Customs, 
i  vol.,  8vo.  Cloth,  $6 ;  sheep,  $7. 

"We  can  only  say  that  if  the  remaining  volumes  are  executed  in  the  same  spirit  of 
candid  and  careful  investigation,  the  same  untiring  industry,  and  intelligent  good  sense, 
which  mark  the  volume  before  us,  Mr.  Bancroft's  '  Native  Races  of  the  Pacific  States 
will  form,  as  regards  aboriginal  America,  an  encyclopaedia  of  knowledge  not  only  un 
equaled  but  unapproached.  A  literary  enterprise  more  deserving  of  a  generous  sym- 
pathy and  support  has  never  been  undertaken  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic." — FRANCIS 
PARKMAN,  in  the  North  A^  merican  Review. 

"The  industry,  sound  judgment,  and  the  excellent  literary  style  displayed  in  thu 
work,  cannot  be  too  highly  praised."— Boston  Post. 

A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  CULTURE. 

By  JOHN  S.  HITTELL.     i  vol.,  I2mo.     Price,  $1.50. 

"  He  writes  in  a  popular  style  for  popular  use.  He  takes  ground  which  has  never 
been  fully  occupied  before,  although  the  general  subject  has  been  treated  more  or  less 
distinctly  by  several  writers.  .  .  .  Mr.  Hittell's  method  is  compact,  embracing  a  wide 
field  in  a  few  words,  often  presenting  a  mere  hint,  when  a  fuller  treatment  is  craved  by 
the  reader ;  but,  although  his  book  cannot  be  commended  as  a  model  of  literary  art,  it 
may  be  consulted  to  great  advantage  by  every  lover  of  free  thought  and  novel  sugges- 
tions."—^. Y.  Tribune. 

THE    HISTORY  OF    THE    CONFLICT    BETWEEN    RE 
LIGION  AND  SCIENCE. 

By  JOHN  W.  DRAPER,  M.  D.,  author  of  "The  Intellectual  Develop- 
ment of  Europe."  I  vol.,  I2mo.  Cloth.  Price,  $1.75. 
"  The  conflict  of  which  he  treats  has  been  a  mighty  tragedy  of  humanity  that  has 
dragged  nations  into  its  vortex  and  involved  the  fate  of  empires.  The  work,  though 
small,  is  full  of  instruction  regarding  the  rise  of  the  great  ideas  of  science  and  philos- 
ophy ;  and  he  describes  in  an  impressive  manner  and  with  dramatic  effect  the  way  re- 
ligious authority  has  employed  the  secular  power  to  obstruct  the  progress  of  knowledge 
and  crush  out  the  spirit  of  investigation.  While  there  is  not  in  his  book  a  word  of  dis- 
respect for  things  sacred,  he  writes  with  a  directness  of  speech,  and  a  vividness  of  char- 
acterization and  an  unflinching  fidelity  to  the  facts,  which  show  him  to  be  in  thorough 
earnest  with  his  work.  The  '  History  of  the  Conflict  between  Religion  and  Science ' 
is  a  fitting  sequel  to  the  '  History  of  the  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe,'  and  will 
add  to  its  author's  already  high  reputation  as  a  philosophic  historian." — N.  Y.  Tribune. 

THEOLOGY  IN  THE  ENGLISH  POETS. 

COWPER,  COLERIDGE,  WORDSWORTH,  and  BURNS.  By 
Rev.  STOPFORD  BROOKE,  i  vol.,  I2mo.  Price,  $2. 

"Apart  from  its  literary  merits,  the  book  maybe  said  to  possess  an  independent 
value,  as  tending  to  familiarize  a  certain  section  of  the  English  public  with  more  en- 
lightened views  of  theology. " — London  Athenceunt. 

BLOOMER'S  COMMERCIAL  CRYPTOGRAPH. 

A  Telegraph  Code  and  Double  Index — Holocryptic  Cipher.  By  J.  G. 
BLOOMER,  i  vol.,  8vo.  Price,  $5. 

By  the  use  of  this  work,  business  communications  of  whatever  nature  may  be  tele 
graphed  with  secrecy  and  economy. 


RECENT  PUBLICATIONS.—  SCIENTIFIC. 

THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  MENTAL  PHYSIOLOGY.    With  their  Ap- 

plications to  the  Training  and  Discipline  of  the  Mind,  and  the  Study  of  its 

Morbid  Conditions.     By  W.  B.  CARPENTER,  F.  R.  S.,  etc.     Illustrated,     izmo. 

737  pages-     Price,  $3.00. 

"  The  work  is  probably  the  ablest  exposition  of  the  subject  which  has  been  given  to  the  world,  and  goes 

far  to  establish  a  new  system  of  Mental  Philosophy,  upon  a  much  broader  and  more  substantial  basis  than 

U  ^Letus^thaT  notwfg  w^av?  sT^  or  in  any  limited  space  could  say,  would  give  an  adequate  con- 
ception  of  the  valuable  and  curious  collection  of  facts  bearing  on  morbid  mental  conditions,  the  learned 
physiological  exposition,  and  the  treasure-house  of  useful  hints  for  mental  training,  which  make  this  large 
ani  yet  very  amusing,  as  well  as  instructive  book,  an  encyclopaedia  of  well-classified  and  often  very 
startling  psychological  experiences."—  London  Spectator. 

THE  EXPANSE  OF  HEAVEN.     A  Series  of  Essays  on  the  Wonders  of 

the  Firmament.     By  R.  A.  PROCTOR,  B.  A. 
"  A  very  charming  work  ;  cannot  fail  to  lift  the  reader's  mind  up  '  through  Nature's  work  to  Nature's 

^'p'rof.  R.  A.  Proctor  'is  one  of  the  very  few  rhetorical  scientists  who  have  the  art  of  making  science 
popular  without  making  it  or  themselves  'contemptible.  It  will  be  hard  to  find  anywhere  else  so  much 
skill  in  effective  expression,  combined  with  so  much  genuine  astronomical  learning,  as  is  to  be  seen  m  his 
new  volume."—  Christian  Union. 

PHYSIOLOGY  FOB  PRACTICAL  USE.  By  various  Writers.  Edited 
by  JAMES  HINTON.  With  50  Illustrations,  i  vol.,  i2mo.  Price,  $2.25. 

"  This  book  is  one  of  rare  value,  and  will  prove  useful  to  a  large  class  in  the  community.  Its  chief 
recommendation  is  in  its  applying  the  laws  of  the  science  of  physiology  to  cases  of  the  deranged  or  diseased 
operations  of  the  organs  or  processes  of  the  human  system.  It  is  as  thoroughly  practical  as  is  a  book  of 
formulas  of  medicine,  and  the  style  in  which  the  information  is  given  is  so  entirely  devoid  of  the  mystification 
of  technical  or  scientific  terms  that  the  most  simple  can  easily  comprehend  it."  —  Boston  Gazette. 

"  Of  all  the  works  upon  health  of  a  popular  character  which  we  have  met  with  for  some  time,  and  we 
»re  glad  to  think  that  this  most  important  branch  of  knowledge  is  becoming  more  enlarged  every  day, 
the  work  before  us  appears  to  be  the  simplest,  the  soundest,  and  the  best"—  Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 

THE  GREAT  ICE  AGE,  and  its  Relations  to  the  Antiquity  of 

Man.  By  JAMES  GEIKIE,  F.  R.  S.  E.  With  Maps,  Charts,  and  numerous  J  llus- 
trations.  i  vol.,  thick  i2mo.  Price,  $2.50. 

"  '  The  Great  Ice  Age  '  is  a  work  of  extraordinary  interest  and  value.    The  subject  is  peculiarly 
attractive  in  the  immensity  o 
it  can  scarcely  find  expressio 
unscientific  minds  alike."—  Boston  Gazette. 

"  Every  step  in  the  process  is  traced  with  admirable  perspicuity  and  fullness  by  Mr.  Geikie."—  Lon- 
don Saturday  Review. 

"  '  The  Great  Ice  Age,'  by  James  Geikie,  is  a  book  that  unites  the  popular  and  abstruse  elements  of 
scientific  research  to  a  remarkable  degree.  The  author  recounts  a  story  that  is  more  romantic  than  nine 
novels  out  of  ten,  and  we  have  read  the  book  from  first  to  last  with  unflagging  interest."—  Boston  Commer- 
cial Bulletin. 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE   THE  BRITISH  ASSOCIA- 

TION, assembled  at  Belfast.  By  JOHN  TVNDALL,  F.  R.  S.,  President.  Re- 
vised, with  additions,  by  the  author,  since  the  delivery.  lamo.  120  pages. 
Paper.  Price,  50  cents. 

This  edition  of  this  now  famous  address  is  the  only  one  authorized  by  the  author,  and  contains  addi- 
tions and  corrections  not  in  the  newspaper  reports. 

THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  MAN.  Designed  to  represent  the  Existing  State 
of  Physiological  Science  as  applied  to  the  Functions  of  the  Human  Body.  B> 
AUSTIN  FLINT,  Jr.,  M.  D.  Complete  in  Five  Volumes,  octavo,  of  about  500 
pages  each,  with  105  Illustrations.  Cloth,  $22.00  ;  sheep,  $27.00.  Each  vol- 
ume sold  separately.  Price,  cloth,  $4.50;  sheep,  $5.50.  The  fifth  and  last 
volume  has  just  been  issued. 

The  above  is  by  far  the  most  complete  work  on  human  physiology  in  the  English  language.  It  treats 
of  the  functions  of  the  human  body  from  a  practical  point  of  view,  and  is  enriched  by  many  original  ex- 
periments and  observations  by  the  author.  Considerable  space  is  given  to  physiological  anatomy,  par- 
ticularly the  structure  of  glandular  organs,  the  digestive  system,  nervous  system,  blood-vessels,  organs  of 
special  sense,  and  organs  of  generation.  It  not  only  considers  the  various  functions  of  the  body,  from  an 
experimental  stand-point,  but  is  peculiarly  rich  in  citations  of  the  literature  of  physiology.  It  is  therefore 
invaluable  as  a  work  of  reference  for  those  who  wish  to  study  the  subject  of  physiology  exhaustively.  As 
a  complete  treatise  on  a  subject  of  such  interest,  it  should  be  in  the  libraries  of  literary  and  scientific  men, 
as  well  as  in  the  hands  of  practitioners  and  students  of  medicine.  Illustrations  are  introduced  wherever 
they  are  necessary  for  the  elucidation  of  the  text. 

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.,  .  ,       .. 

ce  Age  '  is  a  work  of  extraordinary  interest  and  value.  The  subject  is  peculiarly 
mensity  of  its  scope,  and  exercises  a  fascination  over  the  imagination  so  absorbing  that 
expression  in  words.  It  has  all  the  charms  of  wonder-tales,  and  excites  scientific  and 


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